The Quiet Ones
by quietGOLD
Summary: Every choice, every path had been for more time. Except when it wasn't - when it was just the two of them wanting more than just to survive. A slow burning romance. Daryl/OC.
1. Chapter 1

_what if this storm ends  
and leaves us nothing  
except a memory  
a distant echo_

* * *

The new world has no time for noise. So, when the sharp crack of a gunshot echoes through the dead city of Atlanta, she stares down the scope of her binoculars and waits. The silence that follows is deafening, as if the city itself hesitates and draws in a long and nervous breath.

The sun is like fire. Her neck is itchy beneath a wrapped fabric, and the ball-cap on her head makes the hair stick to her face. She wets her sun dried lips – useless really, as her tongue is like cotton in her mouth – and lets out a single breath. It's like wind to her ears – it grows and grows until it's roaring with the rattling moans of the dead and the pounding of their fists. She can see them now - throwing their bodies against the dark glass of a department store down the block.

That same sharp crack ignites the Georgia sky.

She looks up then and watches as a man hangs over the edge of the roof, a rifle in hand. She can't look away, even as he hollers into the sky and lets loose another shot.

It's like thunder in her ears.

She rolls over when the man's rifle swings wildly around, her chest tightening as if he can hear her windy breaths. She counts down from ten, and then peeks over the edge – he's still there, hanging off the roof and cursing into the sky, but he isn't looking at her or _for _her.

He's watching someone. Someone running through the streets.

Another shot fires off, and she's up and moving back into the building. She doesn't need more incentive than the hoard gathering at the foot of that department store. A crowd that big means one thing – the store under her feet is going to be clear, and that's good enough for her.

She just needs to be quiet – quieter than that asshole looking to get himself killed.

The convenience store is small – one of those little Mom and Pop shops that sit under an apartment complex and lap up the clientele that live overhead. The front windows are smashed in and the shelves are nearly empty; there is a brown stain behind the counter and a nice streak right out the front window and into the street.

She feels the slickness of her sweat down her back, and neck; the heat of summer thick and heavy in the confines of the dilapidated convenience store. And she stands there and waits, knife tap-tap-tapping against the counter.

Tap-tap-_tapping. _

Another gunshot echoes through the streets. _Crack. _

Her knife-hand stills, and she holds her breath.

Nothing – only the echoing moans of the dead down the street, and the sudden crack of the rifle.

She shakes her head, more bewildered by how wildly he's wasting ammo than by the fact her feet are on ground zero of Atlanta city – she foresaw only rooftops and plus-fifteens in her future; it wasn't safe here. Ground-zero was walker territory.

_Crack. _

She moves then, grabbing anything and everything that looks edible. A handful of melted chocolate bars, a few packs of noodles and as many bottles of water and warm soda pop that she can.

_Crack. _

The aisle marked with _Personal Care _is empty. For a long moment she stands in silence and stares at the shelves that are picked clean. Everything from children's Tylenol to Ex-Lax is long and gone. She takes a hesitant step forward, her disbelief hardly more than a desperate sweep of her eyes and a barely contained gasp.

She kneels down, fingers clawing under shelves and fumbling through empty boxes. Her hands are shaking as she hits something – and it rattles. It _rattles. _She wipes her hand over her brow and grabs the box – and it's nothing more than a handful of Glossettes. _Glossettes. _She lets out a sharp breath and whips it across the store.

She won't yell.

She can't.

There is no time for noise in the new world.

Instead she grits her teeth and hisses into the silent store. For a long moment she kneels there, staring down at the ground. She tugs at the bandana wrapped around her neck, the knife in her other hand pushing against the floor.

The store is quiet, save for the shuffling feet scratching against dusted concrete, or the desperate growls of the walkers as they throw themselves over and over again against the unyielding glass of the store down the street. She can hear all of this – but not the sharp crack of the rifle.

The rifleman is silent.

* * *

It was a cop who had saved her life, an older man who looked her in the eye and saw a need there. "You remind me of my daughter," he had said, his hands shaking as he handed her the keys to his cruiser. She had taken them, her eyes lingering on the bloody gash on his forearm.

"Remember to be quiet, and not be afraid," had been his last words to her. He had rested his hand on her head, his eyes seeing someone else standing there. And then she had gone. He hadn't watched her drive away. He had simply started walking back towards the city – whistling a tune that sounded something like laughter and tears.

She hadn't cried. He hadn't wanted her sympathy.

* * *

The cruiser saved her life, but only for a while. Inevitably, it led to her downfall. Mankind was a failing race; humanity had died the moment fear ruled.

"Give us the car, and your weapons," they'd all say, virgin hands trembling with guns. The slick smell of gun-oil mixed in finely with that of blood, and she forgot to look scared when they'd press the mouth of the barrel to her forehead. That smell – that smell was enough to make her breath clutch in her chest, and her lungs to swell.

"Do it," she always said. "Pull the trigger; it's the easiest thing you'll ever do." That was enough for them to hesitate, and then her fingers would be curling on their wrists and they'd let loose a single shot into the air.

And then they'd scatter.

There was no room for noise in the new world – only the bitter cold of silence. A single shot meant more than just a loosed bullet, it meant a brilliant and flaring beacon.

_We're right here, _it said. _Come and get us. _

Her bluff could only last for so long, until a group of young men used the butt of their own pistols to send her staggering. They drove away with everything; the cruiser, the handgun, the backpack from _before. _She had hardly managed to drag herself into a building before something had sniffed her out, her head bleeding and reeling and flashing with blackness.

She had hidden in an abandoned apartment's closet, an old vacuum pipe in one hand.

* * *

After weeks of silence, she had given up. She had firmly and resolutely believed that she was what remained of humanity – until that idiot had started shooting up the town and a gaggle of people had made off with a squealing car that could be heard for miles. After they had fled in their stolen vehicle, she had sat in the convenience store behind the counter and waited.

And then she had heard him – she had heard him yelling and cursing and flaring with anger. More beast than man.

He eventually went quiet.

And then she had left.

* * *

She's walking away from Atlanta when she sees it. A cube van sitting crookedly in the middle of the road – the _wrong _side of the road, she notes – with its door thrown open. She eyes it warily, having preferred the concrete barrier between her and a graveyard of vehicles and people.

She comes up alongside it, her knife tap-tap-tapping against the side even before she gets to the door. She hesitates, breath tight – and nothing.

Not a sound.

When she glances in, she stares; a man is passed out in the driver seat, one hand clutching at the keys and the other... the other doesn't exist.

It's been erased.

* * *

**Please review, favorite or alert!  
**  
lyrics: snow patrol, the lightning strikes


	2. Chapter 2

The van has half a tank of gas, the battery still works and there was a first aid kit behind the seat that she now cradles against her chest. She has been poking through the van for hardly a moment when the man lets out a gurgled moan. She sits back, hand tight around the hilt of her knife. The long, jagged blade is ready.

But the man doesn't turn. He doesn't sit up and reach for her with a hungry growl. He simply remains slumped, arm wrapped in a bloody shirt – she eyes it for a moment before she realizes that it isn't campfire she smells on him, but the smell of burnt flesh.

The first aid kit is heavy in her hands – she places both it and her knife down.

So she moves closer, and reaches out, fingers pinching at the fabric and pulling it away. She's always been good at compartmentalizing – damn good, infact –, but even still she feels a weakness creep along the backs of her thighs and spine at the sight of it.

"I won't beg, ya hear me..."The voice has her frozen. He moans, eyes fluttering - delirious and disoriented and seeing with eyes that don't truly see. She turns to meet his gaze, her lips tight and hand inching towards her knife. "Hey, hey darlin'. No time for tha' until ol' Merle's all sunshine 'gain – hm. I can't be - I can't be bumpin' wit' you when I ain't got both hands-"

And suddenly he's gone, eyes rolling back and chin dropping.

For a long and drawn out moment she sits there in silence, deciding what to do. The thought of leaving him behind is no brief and fleeting debate; it sits heavily in her mind, more tempting than the thought of helping him.

She glances back down the highway. Atlanta looms in the distance. She can practically taste the walkers on the air.

She shoves into the cab and pushes the unconscious man – Merle, she reminds herself – out of the way. He hits the door hard, and she hardly cares – maybe once upon a time, but not now. Sliding the keys from his hands and into the ignition brings the van to life, and then she's shifting into drive and rolling away. She doesn't look back.

* * *

They had stopped on an old back-country road – something ugly and bumpy and untouched in recent years. It wound its way off the I-85, and fell away into the forested hills there. She had driven slowly up that first night, parking the van at the top of a hill that looked out towards the distant haze of Atlanta. From there the city had looked somewhat normal, nothing alike the mass graveyard it had become.

* * *

The light from a key-chain flashlight and the failing day is all she has to work by. The stuffy box of the van is the only place she can work in. The door is thrown open, and the last light of the evening filters in and spreads across Merle's body. She tries not to focus on the fact that a walker could come ambling up and clamber right into the box with them – she reasons that she'll close it after, when all is said and done.

She's peeling back the first layer of cloth when she realizes that he could very well die. Well – die _faster. _She had known from the moment she saw him slumped in the front seat that every breath he took could very well be his last – but _this. _The stump was fresh, and she knew when she had last seen him hollering like a maniac off of the edge of that high-rise that he had had both hands – that meant something had happened to his hand that had neccessitated _removing _it.

She wonders briefly if he had been bitten. At that thought her fingers tighten on the knife again.

The man stirs, and then takes a long and deep breath.

She grits her teeth and gets to work.

The amputation itself had been dealt with, instead she's left reeling over the third degree burns that stare back at her blandly. The raw, twisted meat of his arm leaves her wondering if it wouldn't be better to just stick a knife through his temple now and be done with it. She can't even imagine how painful it's going to be when he wakes, or what they'll do if infection sets in.

She reaches into her pack and produces several wet wipes.

She can't help but think that KFC never intended for their product to be used _this way.  
_

She cleans off the dirt and gore, mindful of the red and angry blisters that run along his twisting skin. The wet wipes are nothing more than water and soap, and so she has no qualms prodding them into any red and angry pore that weeps. The man twitches once or twice, but remains unconscious.

By the time she is finished, the wipe is black, and she still pours half a bottle of water over the mangled stump to make sure it's as clean as possible. The man's forehead is dotted with sweat, and his shirt darkens with it. She tips the last half of the water bottle into his mouth, watching as every last drop drains away.

* * *

When he comes to, he comes to with a start. It isn't pretty, more yelling and anger than anything else. She thinks of a wounded animal, desperate and ready to fight for its life. Except this man isn't a dog caught in a corner; he's large and dangerous and his eyes are wild with fever.

"You're wounded," she's nothing more than a silhouette – the morning sun bright behind her.

"Where'm I?"

"Outside Atlanta."

"Back at camp?"

She blinks at him, realization settling upon her – his voice is rough and slurred, but she can hear the delirium there. "Yeah," she says, hoping the defensive fire in his eyes dies as promptly as it had been ignited. Sure enough, he relaxes - placated.

"Where's my baby brother at?" His words are growing softer, like he's slowly succumbing to something heavy and encompassing. His eyes are fluttering, his head is lolling.

"He's right here," she lies as she climbs into the box of the van to kneel beside him. Her fingers find his shoulders and she is pushing him back, back into the corner where he can rest his head. "Just sleep."

He doesn't close his eyes and welcome sleep as much as he succumbs to unconsciousness. The moment his head touches down on a folded jacket, his eyes reel and he passes out. She sits there for a long moment, watching him, wondering if his baby brother is dead or a walker or somewhere out there in the wide world looking for him.

She lets out a long breath and turns back to the sunny day looming outside.

* * *

The day falls away. No walkers come up the hill. She sits in silence and waits, knife in hand and keys in the ignition of the van. She's ready to run if something happens. The words of the cop are like a prayer in her mind. _Remember to be quiet, and don't be afraid. _

The man – Merle – is still, although he occasionally murmurs obscenities. She changes his dressing only once, keeping the burn dry and protected. There isn't a lot she can do for him, except tip water into his mouth and push her few remaining capsules of Tylenol past his lips. He could live or he could die -

So she sits in silence and waits.

When the sun goes down she hears gunfire in the distance; it lights up the hills like thunder and lightning.

* * *

"You did this?" His voice is shocking – like a sudden explosion, or a thunderclap from a blue sky. She turns quickly and finds him staring at her, leaning on his good elbow while cradling the stump against his chest. She hadn't even realized he'd woken up until he had spoken – it makes sense, she supposes, being on her second day without a wink of sleep.

"You're dehydrated and need rest," she hands him a bottle of water and the last – the _very_last – travel pack of Tylenol.

He takes both, ripping open the small pack and tipping the pills into his mouth. He washes it down with a chug of water, all the while never letting his eyes leave her. "You wrap me up?" He wiggles his ghost of an arm at her.

She nods, not really knowing what to say. The last time they had spoken he had been little more than dead – and even though he is still weak, she finds the clarity of his gaze to be somewhat disconcerting. There is a fire there, more anger and prejudice and danger than anything remotely human.

There is anger in his eyes, and distrust, and an unease that he is in _her _care. He doesn't like being weak; he doesn't like being helpless and dependent – especially to a woman. And from the way he keeps eyeballing her – like she's a bag of meat – she can tell he isn't the kind of guy to sit idly by under her authority. She can already see it – betrayal. Him taking her out in the night and making off with her supplies. He wouldn't even blink.

"Wha's your name, girl?" When she doesn't answer right away he smirks, lazy and sure. "Huh? You got a name, don'cha?" _  
_

It's a game. The kind of one a predator might play with its newest meal. She knows because it's something she's done – something she did, once in another life.

But he's sitting there staring at her, waiting for her to say something.

It's funny, thinking about her name – it echoes of a world where names were important. It reminds her of first grade, when she stood in front of a class of wide eyed kids and told them how she wanted to be a nurse. It reminds her of a time, in a place that was dark and sweet and hot, when a man was sliding against her whispering her name over and over. And of a time when a flag, folded and beautiful and horrible was placed in her hands with whispered apologies. It reminds her of a time when she felt real and human and alive – not like some animal scrounging in the dirt of a dead world.

From the way he's looking at her she knows it's a mistake. There is something about the man that is dangerous – something manipulative and caustic. But, he's also a person. A human. One of the first she's seen in the past few weeks who hadn't tried to eat her. She doesn't know why, but she feels it deep in her bones – a craving. Like an addict, she just wants her next hit – a reprieve from the pain.

She just wants something more than silence and quiet and _nothing._

She just wants a goddamn conversation.

Everything is screaming at her not to say anything, not to give him anything - that he's dangerous and feral and wild. But she's so caught up in that echo – that echo of a world where names were important – that she ignores her better judgement, all for a moment to feel like the world isn't going to hell.

"Cal," she says. "You can call me Cal."

* * *

**Thanks to everyone for reviewing, or adding the story to their favorite or alert list.  
Since I do not have an editor, I am going to apologize in advance for any mistakes that sneak pass my notice. **


	3. Chapter 3

_**Warning: Language  
**_

* * *

_what if this storm ends  
and i don't see you  
as you are now  
ever again_

* * *

"What kind of name is Cal? You a dyke?"

She stares at him, "what kind of name is Merle? You a dog?"

He eyes her suspiciously, that crude jaw of his jutting out. Even thought it's been a few days since she's dragged him out of Atlanta, there is still a suggestion of fever behind his eyes – from what she can tell thus far, his beaming wit isn't in the least bit affected.

"How you know my name?"

"You talk in your sleep."

This seems to appease him, if only for a moment. His eyes narrow again when he glances out the door of the van. "Where'm I?"

"Outside Atlanta," she says.

"You find me somewhere?" There is confusion in his voice, his words. He's unsure, but he doesn't want to give her the upper hand.

"On the road, passed out – missing a hand."

"You have a group?"

She doesn't even think about it. The lie is out of her mouth before he has reason to doubt her, "yes."

"Where they at?"

"They're waiting," she lies easily, the words rolling off her tongue like there is an actual group out there waiting for her. She almost laughs – the last _group _she had had ended with a cop whistling a tune sadder than the end of the world and a cruiser car that had promptly been stolen from her.

"Not big on words, huh?"

She shrugs in reply.

"I ain't goin' with you," he says, his words slurring together. "I got my own family to look out for." She doesn't say anything to this, simply bites at her thumb nail and stares. Merle stares back, brow heavy over his eyes.

* * *

She doesn't trust Merle. Even missing one arm and still weak from both injuries and his exposure, she knows not to turn her back on him. So, as the day wears on and she feels the last few days start to catch up with her, she eyes the man nodding off to sleep. There was no way in hell that she was going to just hunker down next to him and see if she still had a heartbeat by morning.

By the time Merle is muttering away in his sleep the sun is low in the sky. The Georgian summer heat has hardly died – only just enough to offer the barest reprieve, making Cal all too aware of just how tired she is. She slips from the cube van, sliding the door shut behind her, and then proceeds to slip the keys from the ignition and into her pocket. For a long moment afterward she stands and looks out across the hills; the world is cast in a golden light. It almost looks like a dream.

She runs a hand over her eyes before wandering into the trees, one hand sitting warily on the hilt of her hunting knife strapped to her thigh, and the other pushing back branches or sweeping across the ground to push aside a wayward twig. The forest is silent as she passes through it – the trees hardly whispering as she passes beneath their boughs. The quiet that lingers in the golden wood reminds her of a time when sleep wasn't a fantasy, but something real and certain.

A particular tree catches her eye, and with a long breath she begins to climb. The branches are thick, and she lets loose a grateful sigh when one in particular looks more inviting than the rest. She settles in, back against the trunk and legs spread out before her. She stares out across the fallen Atlanta, one hand resting on her stomach, and the other drum-drum-drumming against her knife.

For a while she thinks about Merle, and the situation she's stuck herself in.

And then eventually, she sleeps.

* * *

The door slides open, cracking sharply the moment it hits the top of its hinge. Merle jerks awake, letting loose a string of profanities that would have had a prostitute blushing. On the other side stands Cal, and behind her – daylight. He blinks wearily at the sunlight, trying to block it with a hand.

"What the hell you think you're doin', huh? Tryin' to scare me to death?" Cal regards him coolly – he noticed that about her, she didn't really show a lot on that haggard face of her's – before stepping up into the box of the van.

"Here," she's leaning over him, dragging his arm away from his chest and peeling back the layers of fabric before he has a chance to react. He tries not to flinch when the fabric catches on a piece of raw skin, but he can feel her fingers tighten on his forearm in warning.

"Don't look too bad, doc," he says – but then he glances up at her, unsure. "Does it?"

"It'd look worse if you hadn't cauterized it."

Merle grins at her, sure and pleased with himself, "so, that make me some sort'a clever, huh?"

She glances at him and turns away to the pack sitting in the corner. It's a few minutes before she returns, a KFC wet-wipe in one hand and a bottle of water in the other.

"Wha'cha think your doin', huh?" He's eying the wet-wipe warily, but she doesn't seem to notice. She simply cracks the package open and pulls out the damp folded towelette.

"I'm cleaning your arm."

"The hell your not," he's pushing back into the corner. Cal stops moving forward when she is suddenly reminded of animal, wild and caged and angry. "You come near me wit that and I ain't promisin' I ain't gonna knock you 'round the head some."

There is silence between them. She stares down at him, he glares back at her. The stubborn set of his jaw is unyielding, and the bunched muscles in his shoulders and neck tells her exactly what she should do – nothing. So she stoops down next to him and without looking away she places the bottle down with a thud, the wet-wipe folded neatly on top.

"Fine," she says evenly, the frustration she's feeling at his noncooperation bubbling just barely out of sight. "If you're feeling like an infection might be a good time, by all means – _don't _clean it. Let it fester." She sits down in the van opposite him, her eyes stretching out across the yellowed horizon. Merle is silent behind her, and she almost smirks at the thought; the damn bastard had been loud and obnoxious in every waking moment thus far, it was a nice change to hear him succumb to the quiet.

Cal reaches out and pulls her backpack from the cab and onto her lap, grimacing as she finds the contents somewhat less than desirable. A few melted chocolate bars squish within their wrappers. She glances up at Merle, grimacing slightly when she finds him eying her pack with hungry eyes. She tucks it away, effectively placing herself between him and what little food remains.

"How'd it happen?" She asks, attempting to divert his attention.

"A lawman and his pet nigger 'cuffed me to a roof – left me to rot. Bunch of walkers snappin' at my ass... I did what I had to." There is an anger in his voice – and she is surprised to find she understands it. The biggest inhumanity that could be dealt these days was a slow death. She still remembered that punch of fear she had felt, reeling and disoriented after having been pistol whipped and left for dead. It had been unlike anything she had ever felt; helpless terror in the face of certain death. They had simply left her there – they hadn't even wasted a bullet.

And that was the problem.

"Did you know them?" She asks. Merle nods. "Anyone family with them?"

"Little brother - I'd reckon he ain't no longer. Kid's smart – he'd put two n' two together."

There was a pause, and then, "you're going to go looking for him?"

Merle looked at her darkly, as if she even had to ask, and chuckled. "Knowin' him, he'll be the one to find me. But yeah – I'mma go right back to where those sorry assholes be shackin' up, and I'mma show em what leavin' ol' Merle behind means."

* * *

Eventually Merle crawls his way out if the cube van, and he sways uncertainly on the hill-top overlooking the vast spread of forest below. He leans on the door heavily, using it as a crutch. He stands there for a good while, looking out across the woods with his defiant, grim stare.

"There," he says, pointing across the woods towards a jagged scar in the side of a mountain. "That Quarry – we was makin' camp there."

Cal stands beside him, and stares. She remembers the dark of night, and the quiet – and then the sudden crack and flash of gunfire. Merle had been unconscious then, but she had sat into the night and stared across the valley and wondered on the people who were fighting so hard to live. She had sat on into the dark well after the gunfire had ceased and wondered who had lived, and who had died.

And then she had felt that sliver of apathy that shadowed her in this new world – she hadn't cared. Not really. All that mattered was that it wasn't _her _fighting for her life in the dark, lighting the night with the bravest, brightest beacon. _Someone else is dying, _she had thought, _so that you may sit here and live. _

She doesn't say anything to Merle about the gunfire. "You're going back?"

He nods, "first thing in the mornin'."

* * *

She goes with him. Not because she's overly concerned about his group, or even him – though she winces when he stumbles towards the cab of the van –, but because her pack is low and hollow against her back. She can feel those last chocolate bars squishing around, and there isn't much else – the last bottle of water had been the one she'd given Merle for his arm.

She needed supplies.

So, as Merle slides into the front of the van she follows, and watches as he fumbles with the keys. "Can't even stick a goddamn piece of shit key into-"

"Want me to drive?" Cal's voice is low, almost as if she's afraid he'll bolt if she speaks too loudly. Merle looks at her sharply, his jaw tightening. He is staring at her defiantly, his anger and prejudice roiling in his eyes. He casts a pointed look at her breasts before he glowers at her.

"What? You thinkin' I'm some nancy-ass, huh? Jus' 'cause I ain't got both hands -"

"I don't want to die if you pass out at the wheel," she interrupts bluntly. "Which could very well happen considering you've only just begun to have lucid conversations and you're insisting on exerting yourself. Save your energy. Let me drive."

Merle grunts at her, jaw tight and brow furrowed. He steps out of the cab, keys discarded on the driver's seat. For a long moment they stand toe to toe. He pushes past her, shoulder bumping her into the door and continues on to the passenger side. Cal frowns after him, but slides her way into the van and starts the engine.

"Don't you have your own group to get back to?"

She shrugs, the lie coming out easily, "they don't expect me back for a while."

"What're you anyways, huh? Some kind of doctor?" He's looking at her – he always is, she thinks – with that defensive, stubborn expression of his that makes her feel like a sack of meat. She doesn't meet his eye, she doesn't want to give in to the power struggle he seems to want to wrestle about in. Instead Cal shifts the van into drive and rumbles down the gravel road.

"Does it matter?" She eventually says. "What I was before all of this?"

Merle grunts, "guess not. Jus' be nice knowin' if you're a chef or nurse, ya know. See if you're going to be doin' me up one way or the other. Heh."

She glances at him out of the corner of her eye.

"I don't eat dog," she says blandly.

Merle lets out a low whistle.

* * *

The van is just under half a tank of gas by the time they make it to the road leading up to the Quarry. Merle is mumbling nonsense beside her as they begin the ascent up the long and winding road – he curses vehemently every time the van hits a pothole, all the while glaring at her and mumbling to _stop driving like a woman._

Cal hits the gas the next time she sees one, causing Merle to hit his head on the roof.

"You doin' that on purpose, huh? Or you jus' too dumb to see the big ass holes on the road?"

She shrugs, and then hits another one.

He turns away with a huff, muttering something along the lines of _bitch _and _wench._

By the time the Quarry is in sight Merle is quiet. He's staring out the window darkly, eyes narrowed and hand twitching. The pool of water they pass is the first indication that something is wrong – the water is still, untouched. If the group was as large as Merle claimed, surely there would have been people at the water's edge.

"Bitches should be cleanin'," he mutters.

Cal leans forward in her seat as they begin the ascent into the hills, away from the water.

"You think they're still there?"

Merle is glaring at her, "_my brother _will be there."

Cal doesn't say anything.

As they come around a corner, the trees recede to reveal a small glade of trampled grasses and worn patches of dirt. A red mustang sits awkwardly off to one side, effectively crippled by the theft of its tires. Cal wheels the van around so its nose is pointing back down the hill, parks it and tucks the keys away into her pocket.

Merle is out of the van in a second. She slips out after him.

She doesn't say anything, she simply stands back and watches as he moves towards the treeline. It's only as he nears the woods that she suddenly recognizes the slouched, dark shapes of several tents. Even from where she is standing she can tell that they've been torn into - the canvas shredded.

And then she catches sight of the burn pile.

She blanches as she recognizes the twisted limbs and blackened skulls as human, her mind reeling back to that night where the gunfire had lit up the hills like a thunder and lightning storm. Merle is suddenly beside her, lips pulling back into a snarl. "Sum'bitches got what they deserved."

"And what if your brother is in there?" She doesn't mean for her tone to sound clipped and condescending. "Did he deserve it?"

"He ain't dead," Merle lets out a low laugh. "Tents gone – 'long with the truck and bike. Ain't nobody but him gonna be takin' that bike. Not with the roar it makes. Nah," he says, waving his hand at the burn pile. "Only people there are assholes that deserve it." He wanders off, his steps staggered and his direction senseless – but he glances back over his shoulder to the pile of charred bodies, and Cal feels the chill of his uncertainty.

His moment of doubt.

* * *

They scavenge. Or try to. The tents ducking into the treeline are shredded and covered in gore, but there are a few items still inside that Cal pushes eagerly into her back-pack; a tube of toothpaste, a pair of socks, a box of band aids. She grins when she pulls back a bloodied pillow to find a bottle of Tylenol; it rattles loudly, and so she shoves one of the found socks into it, effectively silencing it.

Eventually she wanders away from the tents, having gathered what she could that was both useful and not covered in gore. She finds Merle leaning against the red mustang, a bottle of _something _in his hands that looks more like alcohol than anything hydrating.

"Want one, sugar lips?" Merle motions to another bottle beside him – beer.

She ignores him, turning away to study the remains of the camp. The pile of bodies is still smoldering. Her eyes alight upon a path ascending a brief incline. She moves towards it, leaving Merle slumped against the car. The path isn't narrow – in fact, as she follows it she can see the clear tracks of a vehicle having taken the trip numerous times. When she reaches the top, she knows why.

A row of fresh turned earth; a row of improvised markers; a row of new graves.

She crouches down beside the loose soil – they had buried some of the dead, and they had burned the rest. "Walkers then," she muses aloud.

"Must of been. These ain't here when we left," Merle is suddenly beside her, beer bottle in his hand nearly empty. He grimaces as he stares down at the row of graves. "Ain't no reason to go half 'n half. Burn pile _must'a_ been walkers."

They turn and leave, walking back down the hill. Merle staggers unsteadily after her, but she doesn't stop to help him – he'd just turn her down anyway.

"We need to find you some antibiotics," she's eying the dark circles under his eyes, the sweat on his brow – she knows it's hot out, but it's not so hot that he should be dripping. He only grunts at that and runs a hand across his forehead.

It's as they're returning to the camp that she catches sight of the note sitting idly at the foot of the mustang. She moves ahead of Merle to pick it up.

"What's that?"

She reads the note aloud. "Says their heading to the CDC. This place isn't safe -"

"Well no shit."

"-signed, Rick. Who is that?"

Merle shrugs, "don't matter none, girl. Give me the keys."

"We've been over this," Cal says, stepping away from him to shove the corner of the note under the edge of the hood. It catches and stays – whoever it was intended would still find it."What do you think you're going to do? Go roaring after them into the city?"

Merle glares at her, jaw tense. "I'm gonna get my little brother. Give me the keys."

"You know the city is a death trap. Why risk it?"

Merle steps closer. "I ain't no baby-bitch -"

"You need anti-biotics -"

"I need my baby brother... And if you ain't gonna help me, then get the fuck out of my way."

She takes a step back, alarm flashing through her at the intensity of his anger. She grips the hilt of her knife, more to calm her shaking nerves than to draw on him. She notices his eyes fall to her hand, a smirk tugging at his lips.

"CDC, huh. – ain't that that disease centre?" She stares at him warily. "I bet they got some good meds there. Patch me right up. Make me all pretty – put a bow in my hair."She steps back. "Then maybe you and I can-" she watches impassively as his eyes roll back and he slumps to the ground.

* * *

He comes to with a start. He doesn't yell or throw a fit, but laughs deliriously against the window. "How'd you get me in 'ere, lil' thing like you?" When there is no response he glances at the driver seat, and blanches – Cal isn't there. He hesitates for a moment, jaw tightening as he looks around wildly. They're parked on the highway, right beside the median.

He pushes down the lock and sinks low in his seat.

And suddenly the driver door is thrown open – and Cal is there, spitting at the ground and slinking into her seat with a grumble on her lips, a empty water bottle and a coiled hose in the other. She tosses it between the seats and into the box. "Goddamn gasoline tastes like-"

"Where the hell you been?" Merle snaps, and Cal hardly casts him a glance. She throws the car into drive and they're rumbling down road. The fuel gauge reads three-quarters full. "Where the hell are we?"

"We're heading to the CDC," she says. "You collapsed a couple hours back. Figured if you're going to die, might as well do it on your terms."

He smirks at her, "ah, girl. You jus' want me all healthy 'n pretty so you can take a ride." Her jaw tightens, but she says nothing. He laughs at this.

For the rest of the ride neither of them say anything. Merle occasionally grumbles about her driving, but for the most part they succumb to silence. After a while she begins to whistle – it sounds like laughter and tears, and it makes Merle think of the old world.

* * *

She knows whats happening long before they get there. Black smoke is billowing into the sweet Georgian sky, and there is a heat in the air that is some ungodly furnace. The cube van mutters miserably as they run over one or two bodies of the dead, and groans to a stop when she pulls up alongside a military barricade.

And then she sees it – the great clouds of smoke are twisting from the skeleton of a building, and the military barricade is little more than a mass graveyard of half charred, half eaten bodies. There isn't even a walker in sight, and it isn't hard to suppose that the heat flaring off the building's remains was enough to deter them from approaching.

"Oh my god."

The tone of her voice is enough to make him hesitate from his daydreams – the heat radiating off the window his head is leaning against makes him flinch. He glances up sharply at Cal, brows furrowing as he takes in her wide eyed expression. They hadn't been around one another long, but he had seen only two expressions on her face; nothing, or fuck-you.

But this... It makes him glance sharply out the window.

The burning building is nothing to him – at first-, but then he sees the blackened sign of twisted metal leaning against a parking booth. _CDC – Centre for Disease Control._

He feels it come out from underneath him – the earth. Like someone's laughing in the distance and ripping a rug out from beneath his feet. It's a weird feeling; like nothing he's ever felt. It starts off hollow – a sort of disbelief that's waiting to be laughed off as a joke.

But then he looks around and it isn't a joke. This is the CDC and it is on fire.

He remembers when he was in prison, and Daryl wasn't anything more than a boy. And the call he'd gotten and the tears that whispered through his younger brother's voice still stuck in his head. Hardly more than a boy, and Daryl had told him their momma had died in a fire. Merle hadn't cried or anything; he'd been too damn pissed off to care.

"He's dead then," Merle says, and he can't help but scratch at his nose to try and chase that weird, sick feeling that's crawling up his throat. He doesn't look away, he can't - not with the fire spitting black smoke into the sky, not with it still licking the bones of the CDC and shattering them to ash. He doesn't even look away when he remembers Daryl's voice over the phone, and those sad little words '_fire ate 'er up. Ain't nothing left. It's like she was never here.'  
_

He doesn't even have time to stand in that heat and wonder what it's like to die in flames. One moment they're sitting there, and the next Cal is hissing _walkers _and she's right – there they are, stumbling from the streets around the fire, into the heat. One catches on fire and walks towards them without pause – eventually it collapses, sizzling to ash.

"We gotta go," Cal is hissing, but Merle isn't listening. He's just looking out the window, staring at the fire. And as she throws the car into drive and leaves the blackened graveyard behind, Merle turns away from the flames, thinking about his little brother.

"Ain't nothing left," he says.

_It's like he was never here._

* * *

**Not sure how I feel about this chapter - Review please!**

lyrics, The Lightning Strikes - Snow Patrol


	4. Chapter 4

They drive. Merle quiet and sweating; Cal's mind reeling and calculating and wondering. She doesn't like this – being with another person. Too much can go wrong, especially with a man like Merle – angry and sick as he is. The cop had been her one chance; she doubts that Merle would be so kind as to slip the van keys into her hand and walk away.

The burning CDC recedes behind them until all that's left is a great and billowing cloud. A glance at the side-view mirrors suggests there are no walkers following them as they drive slowly through the streets, although the occasional one shambles out of an alley and stares longingly after them. She doesn't watch to see if they begin their creaking lope after the van; she'd rather not think about it.

"We're going to need food," she says. "My pack is getting low – and you still need antibiotics."

Merle doesn't say anything – he is staring out the window.

"Edge of the city is probably best," she's muttering, wondering why she's even trying to include him – wondering why she's even wasting her breath. "Grab what we need, and get out."

Merle lets out a huff.

"And then we're going to head out of Atlanta.

His head jerks up and he's staring at her, "we leavin' the city?"

She barely nods, "it's not safe here."

Merle lets out a low, scathing laugh, "ain't no where safe."

* * *

The small strip mall is quiet, idyllic. It's on the edge of town in a nice little suburb. The only indication that the world's gone to hell is the lack of cars in the parking lot – and the sale sign in one of the department store windows that proudly proclaims a weekend sale that was suppose to happen over a month ago. It's quiet, idyllic.

And she wonders just how much trouble it's going to bring.

They both sit there in silence, staring across the parking lot to the drug store perched quietly at the end of the strip. It's a weird feeling, just sitting and watching and waiting – like something that they might have done long ago when the parking lot was bustling with life. Instead they're looking out across a desolate slab of concrete, wondering if going into the drug store is more of a death sentence then turning and leaving.

The silence stretches on and on. Cal eventually fishes out the last chocolate bars – both malformed and squishing in their wrappers. They eat in silence, and afterward they suck at the flavour left on their teeth and marvel at the sugar sitting heavily in their guts.

"There should be some food in there – water," Merle mutters. The fever in his eyes is dripping away, replaced by an expression of relief. Cal had handed him her newly acquired bottle of Tylenol earlier – _why the hell is there a sock in here? _He'd asked –, wincing when he downed a handful of the pills in one go.

"And medicine for you," she glances down at his arm. "Sterile bandages. Antibiotic creams."

"You ain't riskin' your life for me, girl. I know better."

She nods, "you're right." He sputters, and she ignores him. "If I don't get us some food and water – we might as well just take a walk downtown." She doesn't take the keys from the ignition as she swings the doors open. "If I'm not back in twenty – I'm dead."

Merle doesn't even have a chance to say anything; she's off and walking across the parking lot, hunting knife in one hand and backpack slung across her back.

Cal knows it's stupid; hell, coming back into the city was stupid. She was shacked up with a one armed redneck who was a proving to be little more than a chauvinistic pig, and she was risking her own neck to get him something for the arm he had cut off himself. All she could think about was when she'd have a chance to leave him behind, and find somewhere to hide out. She wasn't deluded enough to think Merle was permanent partner material – he was loud, obnoxious and was more than likely to kill her than get her killed.

Cal doesn't approach the drug store head on, she swings out further into the parking lot to get a clear view down the building's side – from what she can see there is neither hide nor hair of a walker, or anything else for that matter. She glances over her shoulder at the van, somewhat surprised to see it still sitting there forlornly in the parking lot. Merle waves at her; she turns away.

The store's insides are dark, and the front door is locked. She lets out a sigh of relief at the fact, knowing if there were walkers going to be inside it'd be one or two – not a horde. She's quick to slide her knife against the window, letting the tip of the blade tap-tap-tap against the glass. She holds her breath for a moment, listening and waiting for anything to react.

Nothing.

Cal lets out a long breath, the words of the cop echoing in her mind. _Don't be afraid. _

She checks over her shoulder before sliding around the side of the building. The regret of leaving her exit out of sight and unprotected burns at the back of her throat, and she shoulders the possibility that she might have to rely on Merle to get out of any situation unscathed. The thought lingers in the back of her mind, toxic and unwelcome.

She blinks and moves around to the back door, hesitating when she catches sight of a car parked awkwardly next to the garbage dumpster. The whole scene is eery – a dusted car with a door propped open; the dark interior spilling out a handful of swollen cardboard boxes. Cal stoops low enough to look beneath the car's underbelly – only a few scattered papers stick to the concrete.

She stands up and moves to the door, her eyes glancing back and forth between the pharmacy entrance and the car. She is tucking herself behind the door as she taps the tip of her knife against the handle. _Tap-tap-tap. _For a long moment after she waits, one hand splayed across the door. She's listening and waiting and _feeling. _

No moans. No sounds. No scratching hands clawing at the door.

Another long moment draws out, and then she's moving forward. The door is pulled open and she's in, her knife raised and her legs bent; her mind reeling and her muscles screaming; her neck itching and her back sweating. _Don't be afraid. _

There is nothing. No walkers, no bodies – that she can see –, but she knows they're here because the door was unlocked and the car was abandoned and it just doesn't make sense. She knows they're here because there hadn't been a sign of forced entry. She knows they're here because it's just too damn quiet for them not to be.

She moves forward slowly, her eyes darting along the shelves of the back room and towards another door on the opposite wall – it sits ajar, . There's a sign taped to it, a comical face smiling back – _remember to smile when providing excellent customer service. _

Cal takes one step forward, and then another, and another. She's pulling it shut and snapping the lock into place before she even breathes. She sweeps the backroom quickly, grimacing as every shelf is a separate aisle and the light from the small windows overhead is hardly adequate. She never really considered how her life was similar to a horror movie until this moment.

She starts shuffling through the shelves when the backroom looks clear, digging up a few bottles of antibiotic capsules, and painkillers, and creams and even pulling down a large bag of sterile wraps and pads. Everything is shoved into her backpack, and then she's standing up and eying the locked door to the front of the store. The comical face is still smiling, though the thought that the door had been open when she first arrived leaves a shadow hanging around its joyous expression.

She inches forward, her hand tightening on her knife to stop herself from trembling.

_Don't be afraid._

She unlocks the door and eases it open, wincing when it wheezes pitifully. She holds her breath and waits, hoping the sound wasn't enough to attract the attention of whatever might have left that door ajar in the first place.

And then she's through, slinking behind the counter and easing her way out and into the actual store front. Right away she notices the pool of dried blood, brown and flaking and _empty. _

She nearly curses when she turns the corner and finds the thing slumped against the foot of the pharmacist counter, wheezing pathetically. It's just a torso at this point; its legs are gone from the knees down, and its hands are little more than boney stumps. It would have to try a great deal to even slide a few feet, let alone pursue her through the store. But Cal doesn't wait for it to _wake up _and recognize her – she plunges the hunting knife into the top of its head and continues on without a backwards glance.

The front windows cast the store in an eery light. Everything is back-lit like some bizarre stage production. The colours of the outside world are muted by the tinted windows, and everything inside is lit with a shadowed sunlight. Cal watches carefully, moving through the shelves with eyes wide. Out of the corner of her eye she can see the cube van still parked alone, and the other she can see the walker torso slumped abjectly against the counter.

She's moving through the small food aisle, pushing bags of noodles and boxes of pop tarts into her bag, when it happens – a stray, wayward thought. It stops her in her tracks, one hand on her backpack and the other on a bag of peanuts. She drops the bag, hand suddenly going to her thigh and drawing the hunting knife from its sheath. The metal grinds softly in her ears. Her footsteps are silent as she moves down the aisle, her eyes wide and breath long and slow.

She can't hear anything except the rush of her own heart – it's starting to sound like some sad song, whistled into the golden evening.

When she turns the corner she stares down - down at the torso slumped against the counter. Down. At the torso. Without its legs.

She doesn't say anything, although the foremost thought in her mind is raging scream along the lines of _where the fuck did your legs go? _Instead she turns wildly around, eyes searching the store for any movement – anything contrasting sharply against the back lighting of the front windows.

There is a fear there in the pit of her gut. A regret at having not realized earlier. Walkers didn't eat their own damn legs. Walkers didn't just spawn missing a few limbs. At one point that someone laying against the counter had had feet – and at one point something had eaten them off.

At first she doesn't see anything, and so she slides along the counter, eying each and every aisle as she goes. It's only as she makes it back to that first aisle – the aisle she had been gathering food in – that she sees it. A shadowed figure standing in the light. Her backpack at its feet.

The walker doesn't move – not at first –, it simply stands and sways_. _It doesn't groan. It doesn't creak. It simply exists in silence.A shiver races down her spine, the thought of the thing having followed her through the store so soundlessly creeping up on her.

She reaches out with her knife and taps it against the metal shelf. _Tap-tap-tap._

The thing turns slowly, and even though she can't see it's face she feels that familiar dread – that familiar wonder if it's someone she knows. And it's funny, she thinks, considering she knew a handful of people in Atlanta before, and they were probably off tearing into some other poor souls at this point.

She takes a step back. Her knife-hand lifts into the air, and just as the creature shambles up to her she drops the blade down _hard. _She grimaces when it collapses on her, taking her down and into the shelf with a loud crack. She grunts as they hit the ground, and then she's rolling and pushing the walker off of her. It hits the ground, mouth open and still – not snapping and clicking like they usually did.

Cal pulls the knife out of the walker's head and wipes it on his pharmacist coat. She doesn't look at his tag, or the picture of the smiling man. She simply turns and grabs her bag and walks away, leaving him on the ground in his final resting place.

She's grabbing a few bottles of water from one of the Pepsi fridges when she hears the engine of the van start up. She glances out the window. It isn't Merle taking off and leaving her behind – but rather a dozen walkers ambling awkwardly out from a nearby alley. As the van rolls forward and towards the drug store, the walkers catch notice and begin their stiff lope towards the vehicle.

She hurriedly grabs a few more bottles of water and slings the backpack over her arm – and then she's running for the front door. Merle is yelling – she can hear him through the glass –, and more and more of the walkers are pouring out from alleyways and yards and houses at the sound of his voice. She's cursing him as she unlocks the front doors and bolts for the van, she's hissing that he's an idiot as she throws herself into the passenger seat beside him.

He hollers and laughs, and then peels out of the parking lot with a squeal. When she makes to glance at the side mirror he shakes his head. "I wouldn't if I was you."

She glares at him and does anyway – and then wishes she didn't.

The walkers loping after the van are like a wave. They're pouring out of every house, every complex, every open building or side street. She remembers the silence; that eery peace before she'd gone in the store.

"Thank you," she says.

Merle grunts, "fo' what?"

"Not leaving me behind."

He doesn't say anything – he just glances at her pack.

* * *

They're pulled off somewhere on the side of the interstate just outside of Atlanta. A canvas tarp they found in the van's box is draped shoddily across the back of the cab, effectively hiding the light of the single flashlight key chain propped between them from the outside world. Cal taps it every time it flickers and stutters, explaining carefully that she'd found it in a dollar store.

"I could go for a nice, cold beer," Merle is popping chips into his mouth, chewing and tonguing his teeth. He glances up at her from his bag of Doritos, his lips twitching. "What 'bout you, girly?"

Cal shrugs, licking her fingers clean of any wayward cheese powder. "Didn't you have a beer already today?"

Merle lets out a low, raspy laugh, "warm, skunky beer ain't a beer – it's piss." Cal glances up at him. Merle scowls and holds out his hand, "pass me my pills."

She tosses him the bottle, "take too many and they're gonna flush right through you."

Merle smirks as he downs two more of the tablets, washing them down with a swig of water. "This here ain't my first walk 'round the ballpark with some antibiotics, girly. No need to worry your sweet little self over it." He doesn't toss the bottle back – she doesn't say anything about it.

For a long while after they sit in silence – it isn't awkward, but neither is it companionable. If she was to call it anything, it would be _human. _They simply sit and eat and breathe. They don't worry about that achy feeling in their stomachs, or the fact that both of them have had their fair share of near death experiences in the past few days. They're just two people stuck in a cube van with a nightmare walking outside – and for a moment, they don't care.

"You have family?" Merle's voice is shocking in the silence, and she glances up sharply from the crumbs of her chips to stare at him. "You have family, huh? Lil' boy on your hip? Sweet momma bakin' you pies? A boy to worry 'bout?"

Cal stares. She can't stop staring. She just thinks about what the world once was, and how it is now, and wonders if Merle ever even had a momma to bake him a pie – she had already assumed earlier in the day that hell spat him out and told him never to come back. Her lips twitch, barely, as she imagines Merle being fussed over by a woman twice his age.

"How about you?" She turns it back on him. "You got a wife? Kids? A trailer? A sweet momma to bake you pies?"

His grin falls away quickly and is replaced with his crude, jaw jutting scowl. She can practically hear him grinding his teeth. "Ain't none o' your business."

She shrugs, "likewise."

They go silent. She can feel his eyes on her, but she busies herself by sliding her pack over and digging through the brain. Merle isn't quiet for long. "How'd you get out?" He's asking, and she's wondering if he'll ever stop asking her about _her._

She lets out an annoyed breath and glances up at him. "A cop," she says after a moment. "Older man. Picked me up off the road and put a gun in my hand and told me plainly to shoot anything that looked hungry."

He had a kindness to his face, she thinks. The kind that you never really saw, even then.

"Sounds like a smart man."

She notices it then, how his eyes shift briefly to her pack – and then he's looking away and sucking the cheese powder off his finger tips. She's had too many run-ins with other survivors to not feel suspicious. The world had twisted people up, and a cursory glance now preludes the truth more often than not. There was a need in the new world; a need so deep in a person that they were willing to kill for it.

She clutches the bag until her knuckles ache, and eventually she tells Merle to sleep – that she'll take first watch. He belly aches over the idea of having to _watch _at all, but eventually nods off.

When he sits up a few hours later and tells her to get some rest she just shakes her head and says she's not tired.

* * *

**Thanks everyone for the feedback and attention this story has been receiving. It means a lot!  
**


	5. Chapter 5

She doesn't sleep – not really. She grabs maybe a handful of rest before she jolts awake, fingers dancing across the hilt of the hunting knife and her breath held tight in her chest. She mistakes the cube van for a closet, and she's reaching and groping in the dark until the pack is there in her hands instead of a twisted vacuum pipe. For a long moment afterward she sits in the quiet, listening to him breathe.

And no matter how she controls her breathing, no matter what silent thoughts she sends hoping he won't notice she's awake – he does.

"It ain't time for your watch," he says.

"It's okay," she replies. "I can't sleep."

By the time they're a few days out from the drug store Cal is haggard. She can feel the wear and tear of both hunger and her sleeplessness. She's on edge, growing more wary of her traveling companion with every wakeful night. Every moment is spent watching him, the wariness she had felt that first day mutating into paranoia.

Merle notices her vigilance. He snaps at her one afternoon to _quit her staring. _

She can feel it; that same quiet that had hung around the drug store now surrounds them. A silence – a queer calm that waits with bated breath. She knows it's only a matter of time. She doesn't quite know what the end game is going to look like, but she has an inkling it'll end with them going their separate ways.

* * *

She tells him her group is outside of Atlanta. He seems to accept this, and so the congested roads of rural Georgia become their new storming ground.

Cal's pack is low, water is all they have now – that and antibiotics –, but it isn't enough to last on. They had been on the interstate for a while, but the roads are no longer reliable. They're mass graveyards that force them to duck and weave – funneling them down certain back roads and then randomly spitting them back out onto the I-85. Eventually they're so turned around that the van is suddenly rattling over a cattle guard and they're both staring up at an abandoned house tucked forlornly amongst some trees.

For a long while they sit in the van and stare up at the house and at the trees and the road behind them. "We need food," Cal finally says and Merle agrees.

They slip out of the van, Cal slinging her pack over her back while eying the mean knife in Merle's hand – recently liberated from an abandoned truck on the side of the range road they just came off of. She leaves the keys in the ignition and shuts the door as quietly as she can. With one last glance back down the road she turns to regard the house, her breath held tight in her chest.

The old house isn't boarded up. It isn't in any way different than it might have been any other time in its life – except that it is as quiet as the wood that surrounds it. The curtains are drawn on all the windows; the wrap-around porch is covered in a fine layer of undisturbed dust; and the front door is shut.

They move forward, the afternoon light glancing through the trees to offer them a smattering of sun drops. Merle walks ahead, Cal having dropped back to let him pass.

The pack is light on her back; her fingers itch to do up the chest and hip straps. She doesn't. She knows better than to secure something to her body that could become a liability.

The porch creaks when Merle takes a step, and they both wince. She lets out a long and deep breath, willing herself to hear anything – anything that suggests that something or someone is inside. The deep quiet is reassuring. Eventually they move up to the door – it's locked. She lets out a breath, and Merle casts her a look. She doesn't say anything.

Merle is the one that gets them in – he takes the butt of his knife and smashes a small hole into a panel of glass beside the door knob. He reaches in and unlocks it. The door creaks open. "Not the smartest thing," she hisses, "sticking your hand into some dark hole."

"Depends," Merle smirks back at her and Cal stops dead in her tracks.

"Pig," she squeezes past him and into the house, moving quickly into the first room to the right. Her knife is high overhead, her other arm held out in front of her. The position is ready. Her legs bent and weight low. Her heart beat is a bruising staccato in her chest, and her breath slides evenly from her lungs.

It's a quaint living room she now stands in. A television tucked neatly off in a corner, and a plethora of woodsy furniture hugs the walls. A deer head mounted on the far wall stares down at her, its glassy eyes sightless and eternal.

"I'll check upstairs," Merle mutters, his voice already far away as he begins creaking up the stairs.

Cal moves fast. She scours the lower floor, trying hard not to look at the framed photos lining the walls or the personal touches of a family long dead. Betty and Graham; she spots their names cross stitched above a window overlooking a back yard – she swallows hard and continues on.

She wasn't bad at compartmentalizing. It was something she'd learned at an early age; something she'd needed lest she become like her mother – a catatonic mess waiting for someone to come home from a far off war. But even she had a hard time standing in someone's house, staring at what once was their lives and their past and their future. She never looked at the photographs; she never searched the faces of people who were long gone dead.

It was sitting wrong in her gut that she knew the names of the couple who had owned this house.

Eventually she finds herself in the kitchen, and its there that she finds the food. A few cans of non-perishables. Beans, peaches, some sort of mystery meat that makes her mouth water. She's fishing them into her pack when Merle shows up, a grin on his face.

"Look'it," he's holding up a baggy of prescription drugs.

"Where'd you get that?" She turns back to the cupboard and pulls out a pack of rotten cookies.

"Bathroom." She makes a sound in her throat and moves on to the next, there are a few bottles of water, and even a bucket of powdered lemonade. "Not a lot, huh?"

"Nope," she mutters, tossing the bucket into the pack. They make short work of the kitchen, pulling out the food first, but then proceeding on to the drawers. She pulls out a roll of duct tape and tucks it neatly away in her backpack.

"Found some clothes upstairs. Thought a change might do," Merle's voice is coming from the living room, and when she pokes her head in she finds him sitting on the couch staring at the television. He's thumbing the buttons of a new shirt tucked on beneath his vest; it has a musty smell that reminds her of her grandmother.

She doesn't say anything as she climbs the stairs, moving through the doors that Merle had obviously thrown open. The first room at the top is a bathroom, the drawers tossed open and rifled through. She grabs the tooth brush sitting in a cup beside the sink and tucks it away in her pack.

The next few rooms are storage. The skeleton of old beds tucked against corners, covered in cardboard boxes that are nibbled and chewed on by squirrels. Every room echoes of life, but in the end they are just that – echoes. Rooms full of memories long past; rooms full of toys and books and games. She hesitates when she pushes open a door and realizes it is the bedroom of Betty and Graham.

She swallows at the sight of the open closet, the discarded clothes littering the floor that Merle had obviously tossed about. The bed is still made; a fine layer of dust distorts the crisp lines and bright colours of the duvet. Cal moves to the closet, peering in at the few clothes that were left behind. Frilly lace collars and woolen sweaters stare back at her. She grimaces and shrugs on one of the large flannel, not caring if it smells like moths.

She scouts the rest of the room, indifferent that Merle already had. She finds a photo album beside the bed, open to a page with a small finger painted flower and a short and sweet note that says _To Grandma._

She tucks the album away, her lips thin as she opens the bedside stand. It's there that she finds a gun.

It's unexpected really. Before she can quite comprehend what she's looking at, she's tugging the handgun out from the drawer of the bed stand. For a long moment she stares at it, her back slicking with a sudden sweat and her eyes wide. She knows with certainty that she is staring upon the harbinger of life – and death.

Her fingers itch. She feels the sweet chill of a gun against her temple; she's breathing in the tangy, slick smell of gun-oil. And then she blinks and it's gone; the chill is replaced by that stuffy Georgia heat, and the smell of the house is musty and old.

She doesn't know why she does it, but she wraps it carefully in one of Betty's lacy purple shirts and shoves it ceremoniously into the brain of the pack. Her hand lingers on the zipper, trepidation flaring in her.

And then she returns to Merle, and they leave Betty and Graham's house behind.

* * *

There was a taste to the air. A peculiar flavour that was part Georgia sweetness, and part dead. It would slide right into your mouth and leave a thickness there at the back of your throat. In the heart of Atlanta it had been thicker and grittier, prompted by the concrete jungle that baked the air with the summer heat. In the country there were moments of reprieve; in the country there were moments when rolling down the window of the cube van didn't mean getting a face full of walker stench.

Merle had wanted the air conditioning on. "Just for a moment," he'd said. The cool air had circled around for _just a moment _before he flicked it off. The gas gauge was just under half a tank, "best not waste much, hm."

Afterward, when the coolness leaks away, they roll down their windows. The wind breathes in and swirls around them. It smells sweet, but not the kind of sweetness the dead leak off – more like peaches and beautiful hills and a sky that was endless blue. It smells like thunderstorms in the afternoon - cloud bursts that rumbled and wept and went on into the distance forever.

* * *

"You ever just... have a feelin'?" Merle mumbles around his food, eying her from across the dim lighting of the flashlight.

"What sort of feeling?" She's not looking at him, she's staring down at her own can of beans.

Merle shrugs, and pokes at the spongy meat in his can. "Like you see somethin', but you ain't sure it's real, you know?"

She thinks about it, mulling over what to say. "Like this whole mess we're living right now?"

"Nah," Merle says.

And he stares off towards the city, towards the black cloud still circling into the sky.

* * *

The days turn gray as the sky thickens with clouds, and the van chokes on the last fumes of its gas tank. Cal pinches her lips as they crest the hill, and then she's shifting into neutral and they're soaring down the slope in silence. Just as they begin to slow down she's back in drive, pushing the van a few more miles – a few more miles.

Merle is quiet – quieter than usual. The fever is his eyes is gone, but he's still pushing antibiotics past his lips every moment she looks at him. He cradles his amputated arm to his chest and fingers the bandages – and now duct tape – wrapped around the end.

Eventually the van dies, and they stand in the middle of the road and stare at it with incredulous eyes. The last cars they had seen had been nearly ten miles back, and with the two empty water bottles they had been using to siphon gas there was no way it'd be worth the trip. Merle isn't happy about leaving it, but eventually Cal convinces him that they should continue on foot.

"I'll carry the pack for you," he offers. Cal doesn't say anything, she just shoulders the familiar weight and starts walking in the direction they'd been headed.

It isn't long before they find the town. One moment they're walking in the countryside, and the next they're standing awkwardly at the top of a small incline. Cal glasses the town with her binoculars, her lips tight as she sees a handful of walkers on the far side of the main road.

"Find a spot to catch a few winks," Merle murmurs. "Maybe find a gas-can or a fresh car in the mornin'."

They wander down into the town. Cal doesn't like it. It reminds her of the quiet in the suburb – a deep silence that grins wickedly back. She has her knife out – ready. Merle mirrors her, his eyes wide and jaw tight. Both of them say nothing as they move down the road, and for the first time Cal is somewhat impressed that Merle isn't lumbering behind her like an ox.

They break into a small building tucked at the end of the block – a _For Lease _sign hangs in the window. Cal almost grins with joy when they see the gutted insides – only white walls, a front window papered over, and two doors standing opposite one another. The room is hardly big enough for a post office; it was like they hadn't left the cube van behind at all.

They settle in for the night when it begins to rain. The sharp crack of thunder is deafening, and Cal curls up against the window with her long shirt tucked around her arms and hands. She rips the a small triangle into the paper and stares out across the road – _Patton's Bar _stares back at her, dark and ominous and shadowed.

When their stomachs start to rumble she tugs the pack closer to herself. Merle watches her. He watches the pack. He sees the flash of purple in it, a brilliant contrast to the greyness of the world outside. He doesn't say anything about it, just asks for his ration of water to go along with his beans. He sees that flash of purple again. The binoculars. The tooth brush. The ever dwindling cans of food and water.

She's distracted. She doesn't see the way he's staring at the pack or the way her hands grip at the purple fabric. She doesn't see the recognition in his eyes; or the sudden flare of need.

Or the fact the pills he'd been popping weren't antibiotics at all, but some sweet cocktail made up for one Betty Gray.

* * *

There are limits, of course. Go for sleep too long and eventually you start feeling your temper get a bit short or you start seeing things – or you don't see anything at all. In the past week with Merle she'd gotten a handful of minutes – restless and stiff and uneasy sleep that left her feeling leeched and dead.

She hardly sleeps that night, even though she goes to bed with a can of beans in her belly and the pack tucked behind her. The cans of food are easy to ignore, but the familiar nose poking into her kidney leaves her staring up at the ceiling for what feels like hours.

She hasn't told Merle about the gun; she doesn't plan on being around him long enough for it to matter. She had told herself when she found him that she'd help him get back on his feet, and then she'd start wandering out from the cities, maybe find a cabin in the woods and live a while longer alone – she hadn't wanted to run the gauntlet with others. Too much could happen. People were the unpredictable element – not the walkers.

It had been walkers that had terrorized the world those first few weeks, but then the screams of the terrified became the screams of the tortured. She had sat in her found apartment and watched as a man dragged a woman and her child out onto the street. Cal had heard only a handful of words from the woman before the man pushed her down: _we won't eat any of your food, just let us in! _He had retreated back inside and shut the door on her; her pleading cries and the child's screams had attracted the walkers, and they had died.

Snuffed out by someone who wasn't looking to _live_ – but to survive.

People were the cruelty in the world; not the horrors that shambled aimlessly through the streets.

Merle hadn't done anything blatantly suspicious, but there was that doubt there in the back of her mind. She had been alone for too long now to give in and stay shackled with the first survivor who hadn't tried to kill her. She had been alone too long to even consider relying on another person – even if he had saved her life back at the drug store.

She was better on her own. On her own she could be quiet. There wasn't room for noise in this new world – and Merle was a thunderclap rolling in on high.

* * *

Morning light filters in through the paper, bleeding the room with a yellowed glow. There is that familiar sweetness to the air; a softness to the sunlight slipping dreamily onto her face. For a moment, however brief it may be, she imagines the world as it once was.

Breakfast is a can of mystery meat. Both her and Merle are quiet. She glances up when he slips a few pills into his mouth. Eventually they both toss the empty cans aside and stand – a quick glance out the papered window and Merle is murmuring '_clear'. _They filter out of the front door and into the street.

"Y'know. I'm thinkin' you should let me carry the pack for a while. Lil' thing like you – it's probably real heavy, huh?"

She glances up at Merle as they walk. "No," she says quietly. "It's fine."

They find a car a few blocks away tucked in the driveway of a small bungalow. The keys are on the ground. An arc of brown crust clings to the window, Cal stares at it for a long moment before she stoops down and grabs the keyring. The lock of the door is stiff, and so Cal wiggles the keys a bit more before it lets out a soft _click. _She pulls the door open, and then turns to face him.

"I ain't going," she says, and Merle is staring at her with a drawn brow.

"What?"

"I'm not going with you."

"The hell you ain't. You got the pack."

She's slinging the bag off her shoulder and propping it on the ground, her hands are inside before he can protest and she's pulling out a few cans of mystery meat and beans, and a few bottles of water. She tosses them in the car. Merle looks angry and confused. "I can't, Merle. I'm better on my own."

"But you ain't – you got your _group_."

She puts the keys in his hand, and then glances down the road, her breathing is even, but she can feel a drop of sweat sliding along her spine. "I'm going Merle."

"No."

"Head for Fort Benning – there's suppose to be help there. I know some people there, good people, they'll set you up right."

"What? You just gonna leave a one-armed man alone with no means a'protectin' himself?"

"You're hardly defenseless. You got your knife," she's hoists the pack onto her back and turns to walk away.

Merle's voice reaches her, dark and cool and slick. "And what 'bout that gun, hm?"

There is a smugness to him. A pompous smirk that makes that weird flavour on the air taste nothing like sweetness, and completely like death. As she turns to face him she imagines all those people from before, hands trembling and words stuttered as they held guns or knives or _shovels _to her head. It's a weird feeling to be in the same situation she had been at the beginning of this entire thing; to be staring _another _person in the eye and to see that same need -so deep and dark and real.

She's in his way. She's in the way of his survival. Everyone had one – a moment when there was nothing left but to take your breathe, or give your breath to someone else. The cop and the cruiser and the whistling tune. Or the man who threw a woman and child to the undead hoard, all for the sake of food and water and _more time._

She knew when she had first met Merle that he wouldn't be pushing the car keys into her hand, and walking away into the setting sun. She had known she had to get away and get back out on her own, but she hadn't expected _this. _

"_Don't be afraid."_

She's staring him in the eye, lips white. He's telling her to take off the pack and put it on the ground. She complies.

"What are you talking about?

"How 'bout the fact you' been keepin' that gun from me?"

She doesn't say anything.

"You think I wasn't gonna see it? Damn near impossible when yer always rufflin' through that damn thing. I get it." She blinks at him. "You think I ain't trustworthy? From where I'm standin' you're the one that ain't. I know you ain't got a group. I ain't seen nobody lie so bad. And you got a gun hidden in your bag, hmh? Thinkin' 'bout usin' it on me when the chance is good? What're you, huh? Some man-eater? Lure me out inta the woods and put a bullet in my brain?"

Merle's voice is hanging above their customary whispering by the time he takes a breath. His words punctuated by brief bouts of laughter. His eyes are wild and glassy and he's sweating heavily under his vest and shirt.

"What the _fuck _are you on?" She hisses at him.

He's ignoring her, his hand rubbing at his neck and his jaw tense. "You n' I – we gonna talk 'bout that pack of yours."

She stares at him for a long moment. Her teeth ache from grinding, and she has to take a single long and deep breath to control the anger and frustration she's feeling. "You want the gun - it's yours."

Merle lets out a low laugh. "Nah-uh-uh, girly. I don' jus' want the gun. If we separating, I want that pack too."

"No."

Across the street a walker is spilling out of the side of an open car. It fumbles on the pavement before standing. It's head tilts towards them, mouth clicking when it realizes they're _alive._

Cal notices. Merle doesn't - he doesn't notice because his eyes are glassing over, his nerves are falling away, and he's feeling a bit like a cloud with all the Oxycontin he'd been popping that morning floating through his veins.

He wipes a drop of sweat off his brow. "I need that bag."

"I give you my pack, and I'm good as dead." She's staring at him, trying not to watch as the walker takes one lurching step towards them – and then another and another.

"I _need _that bag," he repeats.

His intensity isn't for himself – she notices the far away look in Merle's eye. She knows the look – too filled with sorrow to give up hope. It was something she was familiar with; something she knew and had felt once upon a time.

"You're going to go looking for him, aren't you?"

The world stills – only for a moment.

And it's enough.

Merle's jaw tenses, and his eyes grow dark. It looks like he's going to say something – like he's going to tell her to mind her own business. He doesn't even realize the walker is there until it's on top of him and the pair are collapsing to the ground. Merle is yelling, shoving the walker's mouth away as it snaps and clicks at his face. Cal is diving, grabbing the pack and slinging it onto her back and she's _running. _

She's running. She's running because she has no choice and inaction means death. That peculiar spike of fear is driving her forward. It's propelling her across the pavement, and away from the walker – away from Merle. Merle, who she's leaving to die. Merle, who would have done the same to her. Merle, who was just looking for his _dead _brother.

Sweat is slicking down her back. Her hand itches for the gun nestled in Betty's lacy purple top. The pack slaps against her back; it's heavy, and it slows her down, but she isn't going to drop it – she can't.

She's hardly more than half a block when she realizes behind her the struggle has ceased. She doesn't turn to look. She keeps running.

Eventually, he catches up with her.

It's quiet and short and brutal.

She's running one moment and falling the next, catching herself on her hands and belly and sliding on the concrete until she's bloody and raw. Merle is on her in moments, his foot catching her across the face. For a great and terrible breath she stares up at the sky, her vision dancing with darkness – and then she's being pushed over and he's pulling the pack from her back.

"Well now," his voice is cracking and loud and unstoppable. She stares up at him blearily, some part of her screaming to get up and another part telling her _no, just stay there and die. _"Would'a been a lot easier had you just handed it over."

She doesn't say anything – she can't. She just stares up at him – all _five _of him.

He's swinging the pack onto his own back, staring down at her with those glassy eyes of his.

"No," her lips feel thick and her mouth feels heavy. She claws feebly at him with the other hand, but he just kicks her hand off and starts walking away.

As she lays there in the road she decides that she had been right, and if she survived this she'd never trust another human again. But maybe it won't matter, she thinks, accepting the darkness clutching at the edge of her vision as the inevitable approach of her death.

But, something stops her from giving in. Something is there in the back of her mind and it's yelling and screaming and shouting. She can't give up that easily. Not after having fought so long and so hard to just be able to breathe. Not after _everything _that has happened. Her hands burn as she pushes herself off the ground. She nearly collapses when she stands.

_"Shoot anything that looks hungry."_

He's walking. She's not. She lurches after him, her hand wrapping around her hunting knife and drawing it from its sheathe.

She is on him. Silent. Her knife is burying into his shoulder. Merle yells. His own knife is arcing through the air, flashing gold in the morning light. She hardly registers the pain as it catches her in the side. She can feel the blood dancing down her ribs – but she doesn't care.

She just needs the pack back.

Even with one arm Merle is a vicious and unrelenting fighter. The pain of the knife wound doesn't slow him down, if anything it kindles a rage in him that results in her flying across the concrete and her knife skittering away from her reach. She's frantic, clawing to her hands and knees and lurching towards the knife when he's on her, grabbing her shoulder and pinning her on her back.

And then she's gritting her teeth and driving her knife at him, hoping it connects with something – _anything. _It slides into his arm. He's yelling and pushing her head back into the road; her skull cracks against the concrete -

_one._

_two._

_three._

_four._

-and then she's blinking.

She doesn't say anything. She stares up at the sky and wonders why she's drunk. She rolls onto her belly and pushes herself up, and staggers over and hits the ground on her side. She can't see straight. She can't stand or see or hear like she's supposed to. There's a buzzing and a throbbing everywhere.

In the distance a car lurches out from a driveway, and rumbles down the street.

She sees _them_ then. Even in her stupor she knows what they are. They're wandering out from the yards and alleys – a handful, hardly more than half a dozen.

Her bloodied knife is discarded a few feet away, just out of reach.

When the first walker lets out a crackling moan, it is enough to get her to her feet.

* * *

**Please review**!** I crave your feedback.**


	6. Chapter 6

_ain't nobody's hands clean in what's left of this world. we're all the same._

* * *

The wind had been still, and the city had been quiet – until she had heard the woman crying out, and her child clinging to her leg and _screaming. _She had only been on the second story of a high rise apartment across the street; she was close enough to see the woman's fear – how real it was.

And she had seen the look on the man's face as he pushed them out and into the street. She had watched as he flew back into his home, and just before he locked the door, she had seen a need – the same need that had burned so fervently in Merle's eyes. A trembling of his heart; a darkness found in the name of survival; the scared and wild search for _more time. _

She wasn't bad at compartmentalizing – it was something she had learned at an early age –, but there was something in her that was broken. The doors had opened, and she was remembering every moment, every second, every breath in which she saw mankind stain their hands with red.

And her own.

That woman and child, screaming and pleading and crying, had been only a floor down. She had been beside the fire escape, staring at them from her open window. It would have been so easy to just lean out and yell to them to run up the ladder.

'_Come here. I will protect you,' _were the words she had never said. She hadn't even thought of them at the time. She had simply slouched back into her closet and waited for the screaming to stop. It had been so much easier to turn away; to sit and wait and _not think about it._

Just for more time.

And why was she looking for more time? Why were any of them? The walkers had been the horror in those first few days, but then man had redirected his sensibilities. This apocalypse wasn't about the end of mankind – it was the end of humanity – it was the end of goodness and empathy and compassion as they flung it to the wind, all for the sake of _more time._

Mankind would persevere; but humanity – it was _dying. _

She hits the ground hard, letting out a gasp as gravel slides along the rawness of her bloodied hands and arms. She struggles to her feet and stumbles on and down the road – the walkers are loping behind her, letting out rattling cries as she evades their ever reaching hands.

Like those hands – shaking and trembling as they pressed a gun to her head – more afraid of what they were doing than the world outside.

"_Do it," _she'd said. "_Pull the trigger; it's the easiest thing you'll ever do." _

Those people, desperate and hungry, were looking for _more time. _They all were. Survive or opt out or die and come back. And somewhere along the way, survival had become something twisted. Survival had become about surviving, and not living.

And everyone just wanted more time.

But really – was there anything worth _living _for? When the promised life was running and hiding and waking to a day full of fear? A short and brutal life, hounded by the dead and living alike.

Her legs come out from beneath her as she goes around a corner. For a moment afterward she stares up at the sky – sweet Georgia blue – and wonders if she should even try to get up again.

There is nothing left.

She is running out of time.

When she was twelve her father came into her room and sat with her. He'd been gone a long time; her mother always sat at the window and clutched his clothes to her chest and stared down the road with this sad look in her eye – too filled with sorrow to give up hope.

And he'd come home and he'd kissed his wife on the cheek, and then he'd sat down in his daughter's room and watched her sleep. When she had woken up the next morning he was still sitting there, awake and waiting.

"_You came back," _she'd whispered.

Her father was a man of few words. He'd always been quiet. Sometimes she thought she saw a sadness in his eyes, but he'd blink it away and look off into the sky. When she spoke to him that morning she hadn't expected a word in reply. She had expected only that deep and contemplative silence he assumed, but instead he had murmured, "_I'll always try to make it back to you." _

"_I'll always try...-"_

She's breathing hard, and her heart is pounding, but even over the cacophony of her own body she can hear the walkers desperate moans. They're drawing closer – and she hesitates. She hesitates in laying down and dying because her father is there in her mind, sitting in his chair beside her bed and murmuring the softest words: _I'll always try._

It is a struggle. Her strength is eking away. She can feel the dullness pulling at the edge of her mind, and a weakness shaking in her arms and legs. Her side is warm; the kind of warm that reminds her of days spent lounging in a warm bed; the kind of warm that makes her want to close her eyes and rest her weary head. For a moment she almost does. Her eyes almost shut – but then she's reaching and digging her fingers into the wound, and she feels that warmth slip away with a sudden surge of agony.

She almost cries out.

She's off the ground and moving down the street with that same awkward gait as the walkers behind her. She clutches her side. Her vision fogging with every breath, and her sides aching with every step.

The familiar building that they had stayed in the night before comes into view. She knows the _For Lease _building is empty. She knows there aren't any walkers there. It's safe – but it's also a tomb. She's wounded and hurting and she knows she needs _something. _Water. Medicine. Food. She can't even imagine what would go down if Merle returned to make sure she was dead.

_Steve's Pharmacy _sits quietly nearby. It's a small building, hardly more than one or two rooms. Her previous run-in with the suburb pharmacy is still fresh in her mind, but it had been nearly three times the size of the small-town shop sitting invitingly in front of her. It'll have more than the For Lease building – it couldn't possibly have less.

The wide front windows give her a moment of pause. In Atlanta, even the shatter proof glass had eventually succumbed to the walkers – she doubts the small town was ever equipped for the possibility of violence. The windows would break in _minutes. _She runs along the side and towards the back. The door is unlocked, and she's pouring in and sliding the lock into place just as the first walker runs into the metal door. The first bang is then followed by the scratching and clawing and groaning of others.

The door doesn't strain. It doesn't stress. It groans from the pounding of their fists, but it does not yield. For a long moment she sways where she stands, trying desperately not to give in and die in the doorway. She shuffles down the small maintenance hall, nearly tripping over a mop bucket. Her hands are dripping red on the ground. She' hardly knows what's happening – one moment she's barely existing, and the next she's in a small office with the door locked shut behind her.

It looks untouched.

She gives in. She sinks to her knees, a soft and breathy moan the only concession she allows. She lets out a strangled sound, her body shaking as she remembers how he had left her so callously behind – not dead, but on the brink. The walkers – they had been close enough that she had only just turned around and slipped the lock in when they were there and throwing themselves against the door.

He had just left her there – for _them –, _because he had wanted more time.

"Fuck you, Merle," she whispers, and sits in silence for a long while.

Eventually her heart quiets, and she finds herself leaning back against the door as a slow warmth creeps over her eyes. It feels heavy – she doesn't fight it. She knows she's not safe, but she's as safe as she's going to be for a long time.

As she falls away, she remembers a tune. A sweet tune whistled into the evening sunset. It eases her into the dark, and she remembers a man with a kindness to his face, who had handed her the keys to his car and walked away. He hadn't had any time left. He had been on his last hour.

He had been the last goodness in the world.

The last kindness she had seen.

* * *

She had died once. It had been cold and quick and left her with a heart that hardly beat. Her heart hadn't stopped – but it had felt that way. It had felt like it just sat there in her chest and shriveled up to nothing.

They had taken her hands and pressed them into a folded flag, and they had told her that her sacrifice was honorable and she should be proud. Her mother had cried for her, but her father hadn't. He had simply looked her in the eye, and he had placed his hand over hers, and then his fingers had trembled and he had left.

_He tried, Cal. Remember that he always tried.  
_

* * *

She's dreaming of roadside explosions and fire and a man in a uniform who had tried so hard, but had never made it home. She's dreaming of a world long gone, and a father who worked so much he never saw his daughter. She's dreaming of a time when a man whistled a song to the wind, and took his last walk into the dying world.

And she dreams of mankind crumbling to ruin, but not _dying _because there would always be people looking for _more time. _There would always be survivors amongst the refuse, piling high on the corpses of their comrades.

She starts awake when she hears a gunshot off in the distance. For a long and delirious moment she thinks that she's back in Atlanta listening to Merle fire a few rounds off a rooftop. Like a thunderclap, it cracks through silence and leaves a breathless anticipation.

The window overhead is dark – the moon is a brief lantern in the sky.

One breath. Two.

She blinks – there is a fuzziness in her brain and her eyes are flashing with lights. There is a man standing in the dark with only one arm, and he's laughing at her as he pushes her head into the ground.

'_Cuffed me to a roof – left me to rot. Bunch of walkers snappin' at my ass... I did what I had to. _

_I did what I had to. _

The window is gold. Sunlight casting itself in through the small pane of glass. Cal blinks and stares into the dimly lit office space. The white walls are untouched. The table is covered in a slick film of dust. The door is still locked and silent at her back.

Her fingers brush through the layer of grime on the floor. She winces when she rips her raw hand from the ground, the dried blood peeling away to bleed anew.

It takes an age – or so it feels like- to gather the strength to climb to her feet. For a long moment she sways there, one shoulder pressed against the wall. Her knife is in her hand; her fingers still curled around the hilt. A deep breath is all she takes, and then she's tapping the tip against the door. _Tap-tap-tap. _

Her eyes are shut, and her breath still. After a long moment of nothing she knows it's as safe as it'll be. The gunshot is still in her mind, though she can somewhat remember how far off it had sounded amongst the rabble of her thoughts and delusions. The walkers may have been drawn away towards it, but what of the people that fired the shot to begin with?

She unlocks the door and pushes into the hall. The back door is silent – it doesn't jump or groan under the barrage of undead. She turns away and moves towards the main room. The store is unperturbed. There isn't a walker that she can see. The sign in the front window leaves her with a chill –_Take what you need, and God Bless -,_ and she's eying the bell that had cleverly been taken down from the door by someone at some point.

The place isn't looted, but it is nearly picked clean. The shelves are clear; most items littering the ground. Somehow, amongst the rubble, she finds a roll of duct tape and gauze, and something to clean her raw skin. She winces when she turns the bottle over and sees the label – _hydrogen peroxide. _It'll hurt, and she knows it. Even without the peroxide it wasn't going to be a fun time.

She eases herself down onto the floor, trying not to groan as her side begins to throb or her scabs at her knees threaten to split. It takes a long moment afterward for her to regain her composure, and to swallow the pain.

The long shirt from Betty and Graham's is ruined. It's stained with blood – both her own and Merle's. She shrugs both it and the shirt she'd been wearing underneath off. The metal of the shelf is cool on her skin, and she feels a tremble begin in her spine – a brief shiver.

She'd need antibiotics afterward, she decides.

The peroxide bottle is heavy in her hands, and she grits her teeth when the cap comes off and the smell of it hits her. She can remember those times as a kid, scraped knees and ruined elbows – she'd sit there and watch as her mother dabbed cotton balls of it at her cuts and bruises. It hurt. It always hurt. She usually cried.

But now there wasn't time for that. A person couldn't make a sound unless they were looking to die. And no matter what she may have thought, lying there in the middle of the road while the walkers drew closer, she was a survivor. Survivors didn't lay down and die. They did what they needed to do all for a moment.

For more time.

She grits her teeth, and looks down at her side. It isn't deep; it slides down alongside four of her ribs. The dirt of travel mixes with the stickiness of blood. She sits there staring at it – she tries not to think about what comes next.

She simply does it.

Her hands are dirty. There aren't a lot of options. She reaches out and pushes her fingertips against her skin, and then pulls. The wound opens – a gasping mouth of red -, and she pours the peroxide over her side.

She tries not to scream.

_I did what I had to. _

* * *

Her hands are bound in gauze and duct tape. Her raw arms. Her side. She even pulls on the long shirt and wraps the duct tape slowly around the open rips and tears. In the end her forearms are almost entirely covered. She briefly wonders if walkers could chew through the tape – she holds her silvered sleeve to her mouth and bites down. It's a brief experiment – one that she quickly acknowledges as _plausible. _

She eventually returns to the office. The door locks behind her and she settles in at the desk. A bottle of antibiotics spill out across the table and she picks up a few before slipping them into her mouth. She even manages to swallow down a few of the snacks she found left on the shelves – and then she passes out.

When she wakes she stands and moves through the store, shoving what she might need into a plastic bag that she found behind the till. It crinkles and snaps and makes her wonder how soon it'll give her away to the walkers, but it doesn't matter because she has to get out – and soon_. _Convenience stores, pharmacies, and - god forbid – grocery stores were arenas of death. She knew it was only a matter of time before someone with a heart beat came walking through the door.

If someone had taken down that bell; they had had every intention of coming back.

She's having a hard time moving - bouts of dizziness wash over her, and she clutches desperately at the shelves and waits for it to pass. She knows she has a concussion – she also knows that no matter how she prepares herself she's going to struggle in the world until it passes.

She's thinking briefly about gathering what she can and heading over to the For Lease building when she hears it – the low rumble of a car. It isn't much, hardly a whisper over the quiet day, but it's there and it makes her pause and look on down the main street. She sees it pulling up and over the horizon; a white truck glimmering with the potential of death.

She feels the sudden and familiar rush of adrenaline as she backs away from the windows. The truck is close enough that she knows she wouldn't be able to get out the front door without them seeing her. She glances over her shoulder towards the back door, silent and still.

The truck is pulling up to the front of the store, and she's sliding into the back hall and unlocking the dead bolt. The door squeaks as she opens it, and she freezes.

"He ain't gonna be happy we ain't taking the lot-"

"It's his orders."

"What?"

"We leave some. If people take it – we know they're 'round."

She can hear them – three sets of footsteps. They're in the store now, moving through the shelves and shoving stuff into backpacks. One man's silhouette comes into view.

"Hey – you see this?"

One of the other men goes over and stands beside him. They're staring down at something on the ground, and Cal silently berates herself – she hadn't wiped up the peroxide she'd spilt.

They don't say anything. They stand and move, and she knows – without a doubt - they're looking for her.

She doesn't wait to see if they'll find her. She turns and edges through the door and out behind the store. There are no walkers in sight, and so she starts moving down the alley at a trot. It's only when she's rounding the corner that she glances back and catches the eye of a man. No, she corrects herself, a kid. Hardly more than twenty. He's staring at her from the back door of the Pharmacy, eyes wide and reeling.

A long moment passes.

And then he's yelling out to the others, and she's running as fast as she can.

She can hear the rest of them shooting out of the pharmacy; yelling and hollering like a bunch of idiots. The town is echoing with their cries. The boy is chasing her on foot. He's yelling and _whooping _and she feels a deep panic when the roar of their truck joins his victory cry. She's running for the edge of town, legs pumping and side aching and knees screaming. Her plastic bag is swinging wildly in one hand, and her knife is ready at her thigh.

These people weren't looking for more time.

The houses fall away, the land flattens. She's running down a road, and she knows it's dumb. The treeline is peering into view. She can hear the truck squealing down the road behind her. The boy is even closer, whistling sharply in her ear as he gains ground. They're not firing any shots.

They're just chasing her down.

She knows it's a long shot. She's hobbled by injury. Her vision is twisting and turning with every step, and she can feel the wound in her side aching with a fire. She thinks her lungs might explode; maybe her heart too. She hopes for that sort of mercy – if they're going to catch her, let her die quickly.

The boy's fingers are curling into the collar of her shirt. She doesn't hesitate. She doesn't beg. The knife is still in the sheath, but the plastic bag is just as useful. It catches him in the head, and he's letting go and falling back with a cry. She nearly stumbles over, but she can't – she doesn't let herself.

She runs on. Away from the boy. The truck passes him. She doesn't look over her shoulder. She doesn't dare. She doesn't look back when she finally rushes past the treeline and into the coolness of the woods. She doesn't even look back when she can hear the truck squealing to a stop. She doesn't even think about it, as they get out of the car and yell down from the road.

"We're gonna find you, little lady."

She moves through the bushes, and the forest welcomes her.

* * *

She doesn't stop. Her vision is blurry, nausea and dizziness are her constant companions. They had been coming and going since she'd woken up in the pharmacy. Sometimes she stumbles when the world tilts, or she swallows hard when her throat bubbles. They're more noticeable now that the adrenaline of her pursuit has long worn away. She feels weak, but she can't stop.

Despite everything, she still knows silence is key – and she also knows even an amateur tracker would be able to spot her stumbling war path through the woods. She glances over her shoulder more often than not, feeling the sharp prickling fear of pursuit. Walkers were one thing, but people were another. The men at the pharmacy hadn't been looking for more time; there was something more sinister about their pursuit and their yelled promise as she disappeared into the trees.

Even though the world tilts and spins at random intervals, she still manages keep in a relatively straight line. She eventually wades into a shin high creek, uncaring of the water slurping into her boots. She thinks only of the water consuming her footprints, eating away any trace of her. She is made invisible by nature.

She moves with the current; even shin high, the flow makes a difference. She doesn't tire out as fast, and she makes good time despite the moments she almost spills into the water. The flat and level ground on either side of the creek rolls up, rearing into a high and rocky gorge. A few hundred meters later she's standing there, staring down at the most unlikely thing she would have ever thought to see in the woods. A doll.

It's not real, she convinces herself.

She stands there for what feels like an age, staring down at it and trying to blink it away. It's dirty, and worn, and wet, and surely must be something she's imagining as no child should be out _here. _She stoops down, unsure if she should grab it. A day ago she would have told herself to leave and never think of the doll again – but since the incident with Merle, her head hadn't been on right. All those doors – they'd all opened and she'd been thinking about things she just didn't want to think about; the kind of things she had hoped she'd forget. The kind of things a person couldn't take with them into the new world – not unless they wanted to _suffer. _

And the doll was the sort of thing that could put a fire in a person – the kind of fire that would extinguish will, and consume happiness, and eat the very existence of hope. Not a fire burning brightly in the night, but one that raged into the dying of the day and swallowed a world.

She's failing at compartmentalizing. She grabs the doll and stares down at it. It drips into the stream. There is a stain on the hem of the dress, and it isn't hard to tell that it's blood. She grits her teeth and staggers to her feet. She doesn't know why she does it, but she doesn't discard the doll. As she moves further down the stream she tucks it away in the bag, and she hopes that the little girl - whoever she is, wherever she is - is safe and sound.

She doesn't know how long she walks, but eventually the gorge falls away to a small incline. Eventually she clambers out onto the far bank. She takes a moment to empty her boots and ring out her socks. She wanders on, occasionally shutting her eyes and leaning against a tree when the dizziness makes the world spin and dance around her.

Sometimes she sees things. Flashes of a world long gone. Of a folded flag being pressed into her hands, and a white gravestone standing amongst hundreds of its ilk. Sometimes she sees things like the bustling streets of Atlanta – pumping with life. Sometimes she sees her mother and her father – and at the edge, a faceless little girl holding the soggy doll.

A tree offers her support. She leans against it and takes a deep breath. The forest is quiet. The occasional bird trills softly; the wind breathes amongst the leaves. As she pushes aside the tilting sensation, she listens for the sound of walkers, or of the men, or of anything. But only the world speaks.

Cal's knife hand twitches, and she feels the world shift uncomfortably the longer she stands still. She lifts a shaky hand to wipe the sweat pouring from her brow. She takes a step forward and falls to her knees, her vision dancing.

For a long moment she sits there and stares up at the canopy overhead. There is gold light spilling through the leaves, and the small drops of warmth on her skin are peculiar against the coolness of the wood. The trees frown down at her the longer she stays there. The familiar lethargy of the concussion returns. She feels like laying down and never getting up – it would be simple and easy.

It takes something in her – something that she hadn't known she had until the whole world went to shit - to get up and struggle to her feet.

She has no idea where she's going. She only knows that she needs to get away from the town – away from those men. For a moment she fancies finding a house somewhere, like she had planned back when she decided to leave Merle, and settle in for as long as she could. For now she needs to find somewhere to sleep. She can't imagine staying in a tree; not with how she was feeling.

The bag crinkles in her hand. Her feet scuff along the ground. She's pressing herself against a tree and trying to push aside a wave of dizziness when she hears it – the barest breath of air behind her. She doesn't move at first; she doesn't even breathe. Her own heart is shocked to stillness. It's not a walker; there isn't a raspy moan or sudden clicking of teeth; there isn't a swirl of rot or a taste of sweet grit at the back of her throat.

Cal knows quiet. She knows silence. She knows when someone is good at it, and she knows when they're not. If it was a person behind her, she knew it was endgame. It if was an animal; it wasn't.

The bag slithers to the ground. Her knife is in her hand. She whirls around and touches the edge of the knife to a throat.

The tip of an arrow digs into her forehead.

* * *

**Sorry that this was delayed until late Monday. I've spent most of my day rambling in a fever-state. I honestly thought I was going to be Patient Zero of the Zombie Apocalypse. Apologies if some of that crazy leaked over into this chapter - I felt okay about it, mostly because Cal was having a hard time with her brain too.  
**

**Anyways, here you go! Please review :) It's my favorite thing ever.**

**quote; the walking dead, 208, Nebraska**


	7. Chapter 7

_the woods are lovely, dark, and deep,  
__but i have promises to keep,  
__and miles to go before i sleep  
__and miles to go before i sleep._

* * *

The new world has no time for noise, and so a quiet stretches on and into the deep of the wood. There is a stillness; a moment of breathlessness as uncertainty winds about them. There is a man holding a crossbow to her head, and she holds buck knife to his throat in kind.

The arrow is electric. The knife is like fire.

They stand there, arms aching as time stretches on past comprehending. There is an intensity in the air; the sort of energy that preludes a lightning storm – something that will be quiet and deadly and beautiful. Neither moves, neither yields – they stand locked in the forest, waiting.

"- the hell?"

There had been a hesitation in his eyes in that first moment, a slight disbelief that she was real. Now he's looking her evenly in the eye, like he's looking for something that he's not sure he'll find. She stares back with a coolness and defiance that belies the uncertainty catching in her heart.

There is a spike of fear. A tangible, real thing that she imagines her mother and father never thought she'd feel – not in this lifetime. It's thick and viscous and she wants to swallow it, but she can't – not now, not yet; that would be conceding too much. Instead she sets it back, tucking it away and burying it. A coolness settles over her; a calm as she remembers the police man whispering to her, _don't be afraid. _

And suddenly the cop is replaced by her father. He's whistling that sweet tune – laughter and tears – into the setting sun. It's her father murmuring to her in the woods, standing off to the side even as the man presses the arrow hard enough to her forehead to draw a fleck of blood.

"_Don't be afraid. That's how you survive – forget what you have to lose, and fight like hell." _Words her father once whispered into the night as he hovered over old memories. She had been young – too young –, and so she had hidden around the corner in her night gown, and heard as her father murmured himself to sleep. She'd never asked him about it.

He was right. The cop was right. Don't be afraid. With a gun pressed to her head, she had had nothing to lose. With a gun pressed to her head, she was pretty much dead already. With a gun pressed to her head, she didn't have a lot of options. Do or die. Fight like hell, or give up – and die. There wasn't time for fear.

"_Don't be afraid. That's how you survive – forget what you have to lose, and fight like hell."_

They're still standing there, knife to throat and bow to brow.

"'The hell you come from?" The man rasps – no, she thinks, _growls. _

She doesn't know who he is – she doesn't want to. She stares him in the eye, and she sways, and she blinks, and she fights back the thick and sour flavour creeping onto her tongue. She stands with his bow to her brow, and she feels the world tilting back and forth. She feels the pulse of his heart through the knife, beating in rhythm with the throbbing of her side.

And she is not afraid.

His hands don't shake, she thinks. Not like those virginal murderers with their shaking hands and shaking guns. They'd been easy to navigate – their fear had been real, and new.

His hands don't shake, and so she knows it might not work – she might be tossing her life away, but she doesn't care. If he pulls the trigger she won't have room to care – or think, or breathe. If it doesn't work, than she's no better off than she is now.

And if it does...-

"Do it," she says. "It'll be the easiest thing you've ever done."

"- the _fuck?"_

The air thickens. He hesitates and blinks, and she's knocking the bow away and watching as the arrow looses and flies off into the woods. The man curses and swings back towards her, but she's turning and stumbling away. She had been fast once, when her legs weren't scabbed and her head wasn't foggy. She struggles now, her body failing her as she slips away into the trees.

She doesn't get far; the sharp sting of her aching side and the lancing pain in her knees slows her down. Her head is reeling – every step she takes is disjointed and uncertain, and eventually she stumbles forward into the dirt. The knife falls from her hand, and it lays useless amongst the leaves and earth.

The softest gasp leaves her lips, and she's wincing into the silence of the wood as it echoes endlessly in her ears.

She stays there, a deep weariness settling into her bones. She would laugh if she had the energy – her pathetic escape attempt foiled by her own wayward feet. The sky, she thinks, her feet had been reaching for the sky.

The wood offers a hush of air; the barest gasp of wind as something moves through the trees. She kneels there amongst the withered leaves and the earth roused by her fall. She kneels there, and thinks of her father, and his words in the dark of night. Of how he had always tried to come back to her; of how he must have _forgotten._

And with those doors in her head swinging open and shut, she wonders if he had survived this new world. If he had lived and fought like hell.

She feels a sudden whoosh of air choke from her lips: _now is not the time. _It's never the time, she thinks. There is never time to sit and wonder and think.

She's pushing the tangent aside, wondering how a bump to the head could sidetrack her so effectively, when the soft crinkling of her bag catches her attention. Cal blinks and reaches for where she had left it, not wanting him to find her because of a _god damned plastic bag._ Her fingers skim across earth and leaves and _nothing. _

Her blood chills, and she feels a sudden rush as she realizes that she had forgotten the bag.

She scrambles for the knife and whirls around, her body low and ready. She looks like an animal; feral and dangerous.

The man is there, crossbow loaded and tucked into his arm.

"I don't want any trouble," Cal says.

"Helluva thing to want with that stunt you pulled back there," he growls.

"Not a lot of options with an arrow to my head," her voice is cracking, breaking. She wipes at her eyes and swallows her nausea.

"'Thought you was a walker."

He's angry. She can tell by the whitening of his knuckles, the grinding of his teeth – his lips thin and his eyes narrow and he looks like some wild dog ready to bite into her. She thinks briefly of a wolf – or something deadly like that – stilling in the quiet of winter; there is nothing but intensity, and hunger in a landscape rich with silence.

She knows she's treading on thin ice. She can feel it crumbling beneath her. "I don't want any trouble," she repeats.

She can feel the air changing and shifting – like a storm brewing at the edge of the sky. She waits, her fingers tightening around the knife.

"Where'd you find the doll?"

She blinks.

The storm comes to a head.

"Where the hell'd you find the doll?!" He takes a step forward. It's enough to have her slinking back with a snarl on her face and the knife raised.

"What are you talking about?" she can feel it building inside of her – a dread that coils around her stomach. It is a stout fear, one that isn't for herself, but for someone she hasn't seen, someone she has never spoken to – someone who had lost her doll in the woods and was now being _hunted. _ She remembers the men yelling and hollering and _whooping _behind her. They hadn't let loose a single shot – they hadn't wanted her dead.

They hadn't wanted her dead.

He isn't put off by her response, if anything it makes him angrier. The crinkling bag is discarded at her feet, and she dares a cursory glance at the doll he clutches fervently in his free hand. It stares back at her, blond hair dishevelled and dirtied and soggy. The little dirty spot on it gives her a sense of morbid hope – of a little girl free of any sick perversions of the new world.

"This jog your memory?"

She looks at it, but she doesn't say anything. She stares at the doll with its stitched mouth and button eyes. Somewhere in the woods, alive or dead, there was a little girl without her doll – a doll that would lead this man right to her. Cal feels the disquiet – it's like air rushing past her ears as she runs from a group of men. A different fear than death; one that sits in a darker place than even the cool and calm of her father's words can reach.

"Who is she to you?" She asks, her voice low and reaching. She stares at the doll. She can't look away. "I ain't leading you to her. Not if you're going to hurt her..."

He is snarling, his finger tightening on the trigger. "Y'know where she is?"

"Fuck you."

"I ain't goin' to hurt her."

She stares at him, and she repeats herself, "_who_ is she to you?"

He is quiet in reply. He's staring at the doll, his thumb tracing over the eyes and hair – and the smudge. He hesitates then, his breath held in his chest. He takes a reeling step back, and the crossbow rests against his shoulder. It's as he's staring at the doll that she sees the flower.

It's smiling at her. A wide and happy face peaking out from his back pocket. She would have never seen it if he hadn't moved – if he hadn't taken the bow off of her and pressed it to his shoulder. She would have never seen the petals as white as snow, as pure and untainted as any child's life ought to be. She would never have seen the flower, and felt the sharp and dashing ache of beauty – a beauty she thought she would never see again.

Something simple, and_re__al._

Something that wasn't looking for more time.

Something she never would have thought to see in a world of death and hate and suffering.

She looks up at him, and the crossbow is on her again.

"She's just a lil' girl – I'm tryin' to get her back home," his voice is so low that she almost doesn't hear him.

"That flower for her?"

He's looking at her carefully, "nah."

"You got a group?" He doesn't say anything. "You're too clean to be on your own."

He scoffs, "observant."

She doesn't say anything. For a long moment they stare at one another. Her arms are aching, and from the way he's resting his bicep against his ribs she can only imagine that he's starting to feel the burn of their stand off as well. "You with the group in town?" She eventually asks, and she watches the brief flash of confusion on his face.

"What group?"

She bites at her lip and considers him. "How long ago that little girl go missing?" When he doesn't say anything she lowers her knife. Her fingers are still tight around the hilt. She casts one last glance at the flower. "You best find her," she whispers. "Before they do."

"_You _best tell _me_ where you found the doll then." The crossbow doesn't drop. His words are more threat than request. She can feel that intensity from him again – that hungry, angry silence that murmurs of a primeval animal slouching through a wintery wood.

There is a need in his voice; something that isn't dark and twisted. It makes her hesitate.

"I'll show you," she says, sheathing the knife. It feels weird – like she's giving up.

She collects the bag, and he keeps the doll. They walk side by side. Neither lets the other walk more than a foot behind them. The suspicion in the air is thick enough that Cal doesn't remove her hand from her sheathed knife – she doesn't take her eyes off of him or his bow. On occasion she loses her footing and stumbles, and he's always there – waiting for her to figure it out. He never offers her help; he simply watches as she holds her hand to her head and rubs the dizziness from her eyes.

When she lurches behind a tree to dry-heave into the dirt, he stops and waits. "You bit?" His voice rasps as he speaks quietly – gravelly and dark.

Cal stands up and runs her hand across her forehead. "No." He looks at her hands. She sighs. "Not every danger in the new world is dead."

"The group from town?"

"No," she whispers, "someone else."

He doesn't pry. They walk on into the silence of the woods until they're wading into the small creek. He doesn't struggle against the current, but Cal finds herself tiring as the shin-high waters push eagerly at her legs. She slips several times, effectively soaking her dirtied pants.

He doesn't look at her. He only waits and looks into the trees flanking the creek – eventually the gorge rises around them, and he casts his eyes as high along the cliffs as he can.

"She'da have to been following the creek at some point – pro'ly only landmark she'd a thought of." He calls a name out suddenly, loud, and clear, and reverberating through the trees like a sudden crack of thunder. It shatters the silence, and Cal stands beside him with wide eyes, staring off into the trees for any sign of _anything. _

"_Sophia?"_ She whispers the name.

"Yeah," he grunts.

They walk on a bit further before she motions to the small point bar of the creek. The sandy bank is relatively unscathed, save for her own slight foot prints and the spot in which she'd recovered the doll.

He regards her with a careful eye before he moves past her. He doesn't turn his back to her, but his crossbow lounges almost lazily in his arms. She stands off to the side, one hand curled about the hilt of the knife, and the other pinching the handles of the grocery bag.

"Y'sure this is the spot?"

She looks at him sharply. He isn't looking at her, but out and across the water to the banks rising on either side. There is a small area he focuses on intently. "Yeah," Cal murmurs.

He considers her as he pulls the flower from his belt. The way in which he holds it makes her breath tighten in her throat. He hands it to her, and stares at it thoughtfully.

"Keep it safe," are the only words he offers before he turns and wades further into the water. As he moves away she gets the impression that everything he does is calculating – every action carefully plotted.

She follows him with her eyes. He sinks up to his belly at one point – he lifts his crossbow overhead and continues on. She looks down at the flower; it would have been ruined if he'd kept it; it would have washed away and never been seen again.

Her hand falls away from her knife.

"Too silty," he mutters. "Water washed 'way any tracks."

There are questions she wants to ask, but she refrains. Instead she stands within the churning waters of the creek and watches him, and the darkening wood that surrounds them. The sun is setting – the shadows are stretching. The air is no longer thick with heat, but rather the coolness of the coming night. It would be dark in a handful of hours.

She is swaying. Her vision is blurring. She lifts a hand to rub at her temple. When she blinks away the dizziness, she meets his gaze from across the creek bed.

"How'd it happen?" He's eyeing her hands, the sweat on her brow, the long slash in the side of her shirt. She can see the distrust in his eyes – he's still thinking about whether or not she's bitten. She can't blame him, not with that fevered look in her eye, and the sheen of sweat on her skin; not with the way she tilts and stumbles.

"Just someone looking for more time," she mutters.

"Aren't we all," he rasps.

The flower is heavy in her hand. Heavy enough that her arm aches.

There are doors swinging open and shut.

She rubs at her eyes.

For a long moment she considers what she needs to do to survive. She'd done well on her own, but now that she was stumbling through the woods, succumbing to the bitter sting of infection and the reeling sickness of a concussion, her priorities were changing. If she had her way she'd find a hole to curl up in, but her father is there in her mind – and the cop and his sweet tune, and the woman and her screaming child. _I'll always try, _they're whispering.

_Don't be afraid. That's how you survive – forget what you have to lose, and fight like hell._

She thinks, she considers. She eyes the white flower tucked so carefully into her duct taped, gauze-wrapped, and _throbbing _hand. It's the one beautiful thing she has seen in what feels like an age.

"Is she your daughter?"

He's poking around a few bushes hugging close to the waterfront. When he hears her he scoffs, "Nah."

"Sweet kid?"

"She ain't bad," he mutters with a shrug, eyes still searching the ground.

"A lot of kids in your group?"

He glances at her warily, like he isn't sure whether he shoulder answer or not – it doesn't matter though, the look on his face says enough.

She blinks. She pushes aside everything she has learned since this whole thing began.

"Those men... from town. You don't want them finding that little girl. I can help you -" the words are heavy. She wonders if this is what repenting feels like; if this is what it's like to be at the end of a life, and to want to do _right _by the world. She'd been alone so long; she'd pushed aside so much. She'd sat idly by as a woman and her child died. It had felt wrong then, but it had been easy to ignore and forget. But now?

That doll sitting at the man's hip hurt more than the idea of dying did.

She could forget about dying. She could stand there with a gun to her head, and her fear could dissipate. She could push everything aside and _fight like hell. _But a child's doll – it was a slow, painful thing. She couldn't forget that. She couldn't push it away into the dark, because it wasn't something that _should _be in the dark.

"I can help you find her," she says. "I can help you protect her from them."

He's quiet for a long moment, the indecision is clear in his eyes – eventually he nods. "What's your name?"

"Cal," she says.

"Daryl," he rasps.

_Don't be afraid. That's how you survive – forget what you have to lose, and fight like hell._

And what meaning was there in surviving, when you've forgotten everything you fight for?

* * *

**From what you've seen of Cal, how much of her concern do you think is real versus opportunistic? **

**Sorry for the delay again. Health issues are still present. This chapter was a bit of a bitch to write. I apologize for any unclear ideas, or mistakes. I'm still somewhat in the Season Three mode for writing, and I feel like the group was a bit more trusting during the beginning of season two. This chapter may undergo editing.**

**Your feedback, of course, is always appreciated! Please review! **

Robert Frost - Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening


	8. Chapter 8

**References to a deleted scene from the episode 'What Lies Ahead' will be made. Apologies.  
The scene can be found on youtube.**

* * *

The sun is low in the sky. The woods grow darker and shadows go deeper.

He takes the flower and tucks it back into his pocket. The doll sags in his belt loop beside it, a stark contrast to the silvered petals. For a long moment afterwards he regards her, almost as if he's still mulling over her proposal to help – as if he can't quite decide what needs to be done. His eyes move to her hands, and brush across the pebbled sweat on her brow; he takes in the long tear in her shirt, and the bloody mess of her knees.

It seems like an age before he finally does _something. _"C'mon. Can't do shit in the dark," he doesn't wait. He turns and walks away into the dying light, and she follows him silently. The only sound between them is the rustling of the plastic bag. The forest is quiet overhead and underfoot; they pass through as hardly more than a breath of wind.

At one point, she leans against a tree to catch her breath. He continues on, muttering over his shoulder that _he ain't got all day. _She pushes after him.

Despite her injuries and occasional missteps, he notices how careful she is; how she doesn't let her guard down. She walks behind him, slowly and quietly – sometimes quiet enough that he can't hear her -, listening to the world that surrounds them. It's the sort of stillness of a wild animal; something feral and unsure and looking to survive. He knows everything has gone to shit, and there was no room for noise in the new world - but he wouldn't lie and say it didn't unnerve him, because it did.

She was too quiet to trust.

When they come to a barb wire fence, he steps on the bottom strand and pulls on the top wire. She ducks through and holds it in turn, and they stalk off across a stretch of empty grasslands. Daryl slings his crossbow across his shoulder, the calm and ease putting her more on edge. She doesn't know the last time she saw more than a handful of people together – he wasn't forthcoming with numbers, but the fact that he was welcoming her at all made her wary that it was more than a few. Her hand itches for her knife.

They crest a small hill, and then descend towards a brightly lit farmhouse. The sight of it is enough to make her hesitate; the sight of it is enough to make her breath leave her chest. It was both a fierce sight of a world long gone, and a quiet doom in the night. The light would attract walkers, she thinks, it would have to.

They weren't blind.

When she moves up to his side he casts her a cursory glance before looking away. "You have trouble with walkers seeing the light?" She asks.

He doesn't look at her, "ain't been here long."

She doesn't say anything else.

* * *

He has relatively good eyesight – it's one of the reasons he volunteers for watch so often. He enjoys the solitude; the quiet of it as he stares out across the land. He isn't as young as he used to be, so his eyes make up for the fact his body isn't quite as spry or able.

He sees a lot on watch – not necessarily things he wants to or should, but things that matter. Sometimes it's little things that catch his eye, and sometimes it's the big.

Dale watches Glenn and Maggie – the tension between them; he watches Rick and Hershel, as they sort out the differences in their worlds; he listens as Carol bustles about in the RV and T-Dog pushes something around in a frying pan over the fire. He glances out towards the stables, and out towards the woods. It's as he's glancing towards the treeline that he starts.

Daryl is moving through the grass, and there is _someone _with him.

Dale stands up from the chair, and he stares out across the field. He doesn't need to call out, the others are noticing. T-Dog is moving, the pan set aside from the fire and a bat already in hand. Rick and Hershel are walking down from the house.

Carol is quiet in the RV.

It's when he sees Shane rumbling out from _somewhere, _and moving swiftly off after Rick that Dale crawls down from the RV. He trusts Rick. He knows the man will do as right as he can – but Shane isn't Rick. Shane is different.

Shane is the new world; chaos incarnate.

* * *

There are horses. She can see them grazing out behind the house. There are cattle whipping their long tails at their fly speckled hides, and an assortment of hens clucking away at one another in a coup.

"You have animals?"

"Wouldn't be much of a farm without 'em," Daryl grumbles.

The house is large, untouched. It isn't dusty or boarded up or in any way suffering. It sits apart from the handful of service buildings and sheds, but within a short distance of a makeshift camp tucked amongst a cluster of tired trees. There is a man sitting atop an old RV, and as they clamber through one last fence, he rises from his chair and eases himself down from the roof of the vehicle. The rifle slung across his back nearly makes her hesitate.

"Stay beside me," Daryl grouses.

Someone is calling out. Another voice responds. People are moving out from the shadowed camp, and the grand house – more people than she has seen in ages. A smaller group begins to move towards them. They're nothing more than brief shadows in the dusk; swaying to and fro as her vision blurs and sputters. The only tangible thing is their urgency – she can feel it from across the field.

As they draw nearer, she recognizes the uniform and badge of a policeman. A part of her relaxes – until she sees the man behind him, and that relaxation slips away. The policeman marches, but the other man _storms. _He reminds her of Merle; tempestuous and angry.

They stop a few feet away. Another large man stands back another ten feet, beside him is an older man in a bucket hat. The rifle is still slung across his shoulder, and his are hands up as if it is the only reassurance he can offer – and it is. It was the only reassuring thing in this situation.

"Who the hell is this, Daryl?" The angry man's voice cracks across the sky. "You can't jus' be leadin' wilds things back to us-"

"Daryl?" The policeman's voice is careful - controlled. Daryl doesn't reply – instead, he pulls the doll from his belt loop. There is a moment of hesitation; there is a moment in which no one speaks, and when the two other men draw up alongside them it's the oldest man with the bucket hat that speaks their collective surprise.

"Sophia's doll?"

"Where'd you find this?" The policeman jaw is tense. His temples throb as he grinds his teeth. His eyes never settle – they flash between Cal, and Daryl, and the doll.

Daryl jerks his chin towards her, "she found it."

When they all turn to look at her, she lifts her chin.

"And you are?" The policeman asks.

"Cal," she murmurs after a long moment.

"Rick," he supplies, pressing his hand against his chest. "This is Dale, T-Dog and Shane."

She eyes each of the men he indicates. The last one, the tempestuous one that looks like a storm cloud – Shane -, she doesn't look him in the eye, but rather side eyes the hand he has at his hip, sitting wistfully at his empty holster.

"You know where the little girl is?" Rick's voice grounds her back in the present, and she looks at him.

She doesn't answer right away. She stares him in the eye. There is a part of her that wants to believe that she'll be safe around these people; but there is another part that is whispering in the dark, telling her to turn and run and _get out. _Cal studies Rick, her jaw as tense as his; her eyes cold and cool and considering. "That badge hold any meaning anymore?" She asks.

Rick's jaw works. "It can."

There are words left unsaid – words that pass between them more vibrantly than any spoken language.

_It depends on you. _He doesn't need to say it. He doesn't need to say it because it is clearly writ upon his face. There is warning there, but also a faint hope; he's offering her something, something that can only be decided by her actions – or lack thereof.

"I don't know where she is," she says. "But I can help you."

Rick is staring at her hard. "You bit?" He asks, indicating her hands.

"No," she replies.

Shane is suddenly tugging at Rick's shoulder, and he's pulling him away and towards Dale and T-Dog. Daryl glances at Cal, before he in turn follows behind them. They stand hardly more than twenty feet away. She stands and watches them from where she had first stopped.

Beneath her the grass bends.

Above her the wind breathes.

The world tilts and sways.

She doesn't want to be here. She wants to run and get away and live alone – but she can't. She has no where to go.

* * *

"You jus' let her follow you back, man? You think that's the right idea for this group?" Shane's tone is chastising, like he's talking to a child. Daryl bristles, but Rick is holding a hand out between the two men. "We can't just pick up any stray we find on the side of the road and-"

"Shane. She's here. Now." Rick stares at Shane as the other man's jaw tenses. A silence stretches betweem them until Dale speaks up.

"She found Sophia's doll? Where?"

"Jus' out past a ridge – middle of the creek. Jus' sitting there."

"You trust her?" T-Dog asks.

"Nah," Daryl shakes his head. "But she took me there. Saw the spot with my own eyes."

Silence sits between the four of them. Occasionally one of them glances towards the woman – Cal – swaying out in the tall grasses. She's looking out across the land towards the house, and then behind her towards the trees. Occasionally she sweeps her eyes over them, but it is a brief and fleeting thing.

"You think she lied? You think she might be bit?" T-Dog asks. They all turn to regard her, the way she sways and how she lifts a shaky hand to wipe at her brow. The duct tape wrapped around her arms and hands and the bloody stained hole of her shirt leaves them all second guessing, wondering – thinking the worst.

"Even if she's not-"

"I don't know" Rick speaks over Shane and shoots the other man a glance. "But that's a risk we can't afford."

"We can't just turn her away," Dale says.

Shane lets out a low laugh, "yeah we can, man."

"I don't know about you, but I couldn't live with myself knowing we sent someone off down the road – especially someone who could be seriously injured-"

"She could be _seriously bit _for all we know-"

"Said she got it in rough with some people," Daryl glances back and forth between Rick and the rest. "'n she said somethin' 'bout a group in _town." _

Everyone stops. Everyone hesitates. They turn and regard Daryl, and mull over his newest revelation. A chill races through them all. It leeches them of breath and settles a hollowness in their stomachs. The memory of the Vatos is there; that harsh reality that people had turned to a cruelty in their time of need. The Vatos had, in the end, been of a kinder sort, but the potential had been there.

"Another group?" T-Dog swallows.

Daryl shrugs and sticks a piece of grass stalk in his mouth. "She didn't say much else."

Rick is staring out across the field towards the woman. The indecision is clear on his face.

"Rick," Shane jerks his head towards Hershel. The older man makes his way down from a small rise, his brows furrowed thoughtfully. As he joins them, Shane directs his attention to the older man, "you ever hear 'bout another group 'round town?"

Hershel glances between Shane and Rick, "Maggie would be the one to speak to about that-"

"I'm asking you, man."

"Shane," Rick growls out.

"Maybe we can talk to _her _about it?" Dale's pleading voice breaks the group's focus. "She might be more inclined to tell us more about this group if we _help _her."

Rick looks to Hershel, "it's _your_ farm. I'm not going to invite someone onto it without your say."

Hershel is quiet for a moment as he watches her. He notices the way she sways, and how she rubs at her eyes and head. "She's sick?"

"Looks like she could use a doctor," Daryl rasps.

Hershel nods, "Patricia and I'll take a look at her."

Daryl tucks the doll back into his belt. "We sure 'bout this?"

Rick nods, "we'll keep an eye on her. If she's bit, she ain't got long. If she ain't, and she's with the others, we'll deal with it-"

Dale blinks at him incredulously, "deal with it?"

Rick's jaw tenses and he nods. "Remember the Vatos?" The others nodded. "We can't let that happen here."

* * *

The house is like something from an age long past. It shines with life. The older man, Hershel Greene as he introduces himself, explains that the property is his. The small makeshift campsite outside the front door is where the majority sleep, save for the few who are in some way associated with him and his family.

"It's beautiful," she whispers. And she means it.

The rest of the men depart; Dale climbs back atop the old RV with his rifle; Shane stalks off into the trees; T-Dog resumes the slow and methodical preparation of dinner; and Daryl moves towards the RV with that white flower in one hand and a beer bottle in the other. She watches him go – she watches that white flower spin up towards the darkening sky.

Hershel ushers her into the house. Rick is the only one that comes with them. There is a small room tucked off near the kitchen – an office turned guest room. The small bed in the corner is the first she's seen in what feels like years. Hershel sits her down on a bed and begins to unwrap her hands, and Rick stands just inside the door.

Cal eyes him warily.

"How'd it happen?" Rick asks.

"Someone looking for more time."

"Mm – see, you're going to have to give me more than that."

She glances at him sharply. There is an intensity in the way he's looking at her – something she imagines he picked up as a cop. A few weeks ago she would have told him to fuck off, but she needed these people. She needed to know what kind of people they were, and she needed the help they offered.

"A man wanted my pack. He took it."

"He from the group in town?"

"No," she says. "We'd been together for a few days."

It feels weird, she thinks, to talk about it. She had never had anyone there – she had dealt with everything up until this point by herself. Even when she'd been pistol whipped she'd managed to crawl into a closet alone – by _herself. _She'd never had someone to talk to, she'd never had someone to clean her wounds or share her fears.

"Tell me 'bout the group you ran into."

She grits her teeth as the duct tape catches on the edge of her wound. "Couple of guys – mentioned something about some others."

"Friendlies?"

She looks at him sharply, "no."

Hershel pulls the gauze free from her hands, and interrupts Rick's next question. "No bites, but antibiotics wouldn't hurt. You've got a bit of an infection."

He cleans and wraps her hands. She sits through it with gritted teeth and watchful eyes. She doesn't protest; she doesn't flinch or pull away. Rick watches.

"Not a lot we can do for a concussion," Hershel says. "Except to keep you hydrated and keep you off your feet."

She meets Rick's eye. It's a brief thing; his eyes are blazing with indecision, judgement. She knows what she was to do – she knows what she _must _do. She just needs more time; her best bet was with these people. "I can't do that," she says. "I'd like to help look for the little girl -"

"One day off your feet will do you good-"

"No, it's fine-"

"No," Rick interrupts. "One day will do you right. Daryl told us you were havin' trouble in the woods."

A silence descends between them – there is a tension that leaves the room, as if both release a long held breath. She considers his words with care – he had said the right thing. And he, in turn, considers the same of her.

Cal stares up at him for a long moment before she nods, and then she's wincing as Hershel pushes back the fold of her shirt and stares incredulously at her patch work. She knows it isn't anything spectacular. She'd used too little gauze and too much duct tape.

Rick's eyes round when he catches sight of the wound, and he's suddenly there at her side staring her in the eye.

"That a bite?"

She feels like a caged animal that they're poking with a stick. Like something that shouldn't be amongst civilized men. "No – it isn't," she hisses. "It's a knife wound."

"Can you fetch Patricia please?" Hershel asks.

He nods stiffly and moves from the room. Just as he rounds the corner he stops and glances back. Cal looks him in the eye, and he nods to her. And then he moves off and down the hall.

Moments later a long haired woman enters the room. Patricia – as Cal assumes – moves quickly to the beside. She's quiet as she helps Hershel, and Cal finds herself relaxing as the older man and woman help her from her shirt. She bites her lip when they pull the tape from her side, revealing the wound sliding along her ribs.

"You're lucky," Hershel says. Cal snorts. "If the angle had been much different, the knife would have gone _a lot _deeper." A silence descends as they work. Patricia doesn't say anything. Hershel murmurs and dabs at the wound with a solution - it stings. "You're going to need stitches," he says.

"Do it," she murmurs to them.

Afterwards, she lay gasping into the sheets of the bed, and her skin is slick with sweat, and her side throbs from beneath her new bandages. Hershel uses duct tape – her duct tape specifically – to tape down the gauze, and he explains that it'll hold up better than the regular hospital tape. She hates the feel of it – the pull of it on her skin.

But it's better than nothing, she thinks idly. It's better than dying in the cold, dark wood.

Hershel leaves, but Patricia stays and checks her over. By the end, Cal is nothing more than a naked, shivering child in a bed with the sheets tucked up around her chin. A few antibiotics slip past her lips, and water floods her mouth.

She's left alone in the bright room – though she can hear Rick or someone else standing outside of her door. She can hear the others' whispering in the dark – talking amongst themselves.

She doesn't sleep.

The house is too loud.

* * *

They move forward when he exits the house. They descend into silence, like a solemn court. One by one they raise their eyes to him, standing at the foot of the stoop with a look on his face – _the _look on his face. He wordlessly passes Sophia's doll to Carol, and catches her when she nearly crumples to the ground.

"Who is she?" Glenn is the first to raise his voice, and the others start as if from a dream. Carol clutches the doll to her face.

"Can we trust her?" Lori's voice is close behind.

No one else speaks.

"Her name is Cal," Rick says. "She came back with Daryl today."

Everyone glances at the man in question, standing off and away from the group by the front door. His hands are tucked up under his arms, and he chews thoughtfully on his lip.

"She's offered to help find Sophia."

"Can we trust her?" Lori repeats.

For a long moment the group is quiet. Daryl glances to each of them as they stand around – even T-Dog has climbed down from the RV and his scheduled watch -, gathering the looks on their faces. He can see from where he stands that they're worried – they're worried about the little girl, and the gruesome and cold idea of what her losing her doll might mean. Carol is weeping, though she muffles each cry into the doll itself.

His gut is twisting; he looks away.

Rick answers after a long while, "we have to. For now."

Shane is shaking his head from where he stands near Lori.

"Why?" Andrea is the first to speak her mind. "We know nothing about her. For all we know she could -"

"She knows about another group 'round here."

They go quiet. The memory of the Vatos' fallen nursing home is still fresh and real and _there. _They hadn't had a lot of dealings with others, but they had seen what they could leave behind – what they _had _left behind. The bodies, the looted rooms – a broken kingdom. Fear lines their faces, and lights their eyes.

"I didn't get a lot – but from what I can tell, they're not friendlies."

"You think she might be with them?" Shane asks.

"Like leading 'em back here _with them_?" T-Dog clarifies, and Shane nods.

"I don't know," Rick says. "We need to be careful 'round her until we're certain she's okay. We'll keep a watch on her. Hershel wants her off her feet tomorrow, so someone stickin' back can keep an eye on her while the rest of us head out."

"Carol and I can do that," Lori says, glancing at the other woman. Carol nods back from where she sits, her hands white around the doll.

"I don't trust her," Daryl's voice is a gravelly shock – they all glance at him from where he leans against the door. "But for what it's worth – she refused to talk 'bout Sophia when she thought was I with 'em."

"That counts for something," Dale chimes. He glances around at the group, noting their incredulous faces. "That's got to count for _something," _he breathes.

Rick nods, "it just might."

The meeting adjourns. As they begin to drift away to their respective tents and sleeping arrangements, Dale approaches Rick. The older man regards him carefully in the dark, and when he speaks it is in a quiet voice that echoes of a time long gone. "A feral dog lived around my neighbourhood," he says quietly. "Thing lived behind a dumpster. Never came near a soul. Irma fed it one day. Followed her home after that. I think it was the first kindness it had seen – that damn thing -" he laughs quietly "-followed her until the day it died."

He walks away after that.

Rick watches him go.

As does Daryl, from where he stands in the dark.

* * *

**I am adoring all the feedback! Your reviews, favorites and alerts are all spectacular and really keep me inspired. I crave it!**

**If you were in a similar situation as Cal, what sort of characteristics would you look for in a group you know nothing about? What small, and minor details would _matter? _**


	9. Chapter 9

She sleeps lightly, and when she wakes in the morning, it's to find Patricia slipping into the room to change the bandage at her side. Cal watches her for a long moment, noting the crows feet tugging at her eyes, and the dark shadows that lounge atop her cheeks. There is a tightness to her lips, and a sadness to her eyes. Their eyes meet for a moment, but Patricia looks away with a tight expression.

She doesn't say anything until she's finished, and even then it's only a soft spoken voice in the quiet of the room."Rick will want to talk to you," the older woman says, before standing and leaving.

Cal doesn't wait long. Rick and Hershel enter the room shortly thereafter, their faces blank. She realizes that Rick isn't wearing his police uniform, and it unsettles her.

_That badge hold any meaning anymore?_

_It can. _

The two men settle in around her. Hershel takes a seat at the end of the bed, and Rick settles himself upon an old chair. He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees; an old tactic to appear more inviting and expectant and hopeful. She supposes it's to make her feel more at ease – it doesn't. For a long while he considers her; her watches her carefully even as Hershel hands her a few antibiotics and a glass of water. They are a welcome distraction from Rick's stare, and so she hurriedly pushes them past her lips.

"We need to know more 'bout that group," he says quietly. "We've got people we need to protect here."

Daryl had said something about children, and while she had yet to see any, she had met Patricia. The woman with the sad eyes. Hershel with his cane – and the older man in the bucket hat, Dale, with his stiff walk. While she is still suspicious of them, she remembers: the shock and fear on the men's faces when they'd seen the little girl's doll had been real. They were afraid for her.

And now Rick asks her about the group. _We've got people we need to protect here, _he says.

It is an ultimatum.

"More than three," she says. "I heard them saying something about the pharmacy – heard them mention someone else. I think they're keeping stock; I'd be careful sending your people into that place."

Rick glances at Hershel. Hershel's lips are thin and his brows drawn.

"You just see 'em?"

There is a long moment of drawn in breath, and then the quietest whisper. "No."

Rick grits his teeth. "Tell me."

"They caught sight of me. Chased me through the town. They got a truck. I don't know about guns – they didn't let off a shot," she remembers the boy hollering in her ear, whooping for joy as he raced after her. "They didn't catch me," she says. "But they wanted to."

Rick nods and sucks back his anger. He catches Hershel's eye, and he notices the apprehension there – as if he isn't quite certain what he is hearing, as if the world shouldn't be so far gone.

"Daryl tells me you wouldn't tell him 'bout Sophia... When you thought he was with them."

It was a bizarre feeling, thinking of someone else – to consider their fears, and their tortures, and their illicit fate. It wasn't something she had felt in a long time; it wasn't something she had ever thought she'd feel again, especially now with the world the way it was. There was a part of her – a large part of her – that hated it.

Hated worrying for someone else.

And she had been ready – readier than she had ever thought – to hold out as long as she could, and to protect someone she knew nothing of. To save a girl from the treachery of mankind.

"I'd be careful while looking for her. I can't presume to know what those men wanted, but I can imagine it isn't something I'd wish on a person. You don't want them following you back here."

Hershel's lips are thinned and white and he is staring out the window – watching someone just out of Cal's sight.

Rick stands and nods, "thank you." Hershel follows suit, and the two men move towards the door. Rick pauses and glances back, "some of us are heading out today to look for Sophia. If you need anything, just holler."

He's turning away when she calls his name.

"I hope you find that little girl," she says to him.

He nods, "me too."

* * *

She can see the yard if she sits up. She can see the group of people gathered around the nose of an old truck. Men and women and young people and old. She's watching Daryl stalk off towards the barn when someone wanders into the room – a long haired woman with wide brown eyes. She stands at the door, a tray in her hands and indecision writ on her face. Cal stares at her, and she stares back – and eventually she moves in and sets the tray down at the bedside table.

"I'm Lori," she says softly.

"Cal."

"Carol will be checking up on you too."

"Thanks."

Cal can feel it – the tension that rolls off of the other woman. There is an unease; a discomfort. She can't blame her, she's felt it more than her fair share in the past months.

Both women are quiet. Lori eventually looks away and out the window, towards the assorted group of men and women collecting around the nose of a truck. She crosses her arms, and blows a piece of loose hair out of her eyes. Cal pulls the tray onto her lap and bites into the sandwich. Her eyes flutter shut as she chews; the taste of butter and ham and cheese almost hurts. There is a glass of water sweating beside the plate, and she cringes as the cold bites her teeth.

"You out in those woods for long?" Lori settles against an old table and watches her eat.

"Not really," she says around a mouthful of food.

It seems like an hour before she finishes, eating every scrap of food off the tray. There is a peach that she nearly inhales, and for a long time afterwards she sucks on the pit until her tongue is sore. Eventually, begrudgingly, she places the pit in a napkin. Lori offers her a friendly smile as she fetches the tray, though it isn't hard to see how tentative it is.

"Finding that doll – it means something to our people," Lori murmurs. Cal doesn't say anything – she looks out the window and watches as the last few members of the group move around their makeshift camp. "We've been having... a tough time of it. We could all use a little hope." The way her voice catches causes Cal to glance at her sharply. Lori moves towards the door. "I just wanted you to know that. We're grateful."

And then she leaves.

For a long while after Cal lays in bed, staring at the door.

The house is quiet with life – the occasional murmuring voice or soft conversation are the only things she can hear. Someone laughs softly; the sound is so genuine and real that she swallows back a thickness at the back of her throat. The sound is almost foreign; it's so entirely different from everything else in the world.

Slowly, and without meaning to, she sinks away into a sleep.

* * *

She dreams. Of things long gone. Of a man sitting into the dark of night, unaware of his daughter out from her bed, murmuring to himself of the things he'd seen and done. Of a little girl running through the woods, hounded by snarling shadows. Of a world succumbed to immutable sadness – and the soft lilting tune of a whistle.

And of a lightning storm, silent and without thunder – daring in its beauty.

* * *

The silence shatters. The single crack of a gunshot echoes. The house draws in a breath around her, and she can feel the world shutter as a beacon alights the sky. _Here we are, _it shouts, _come and get us. _

The world stretches as she wakes – as she struggles to sit upright. The duct tape saves her stitches, the tautness of it sucking at her skin rather than her healing, doctored wound. For a long moment she sits there, breathing in the thick air of the stuffy room – and then she's blinking as the house erupts with a quiet activity.

They move past her room, hurried and desperate. The look on Rick's face is of hardened concentration as he and another man heft an unconscious person between them. Several others follow after, the concern on their face evident. She's pushing back the covers when someone hesitates at her door – Shane, the tempest.

Their eyes meet for a moment, and his lips twitch. He shakes his head and moves on. She sets back against the wall, and waits – listening to the hurried whispers from the room down the hall, and the angry murmurs of discontent. At length, Rick comes into her room. He sets himself down in a chair and stares at the blood on his hands – dark, and browned, she thinks, the blood of a walker. She stares at him, and he at his hands. Eventually, he looks up and meets her eye.

"Something happened to Daryl in the woods," he says slowly. "He's unconscious. We didn't get a lot out of him."

"The gunshot?"

"One of our people made a mistake."

She blinks, "is he hurt?"

Rick's jaw tightens, "Daryl was going back to where you found Sophia's doll." He's watching her, waiting for her response. "Ran into some trouble out there – we don't know what. The usual: walkers. Maybe _something else_." The room is stuffy. The air is thick and heavy. She knows what he's doing. He's dropping bait, and waiting to see if she'd react. He's testing her, and her allegiances – to see if she was alone as she had claimed. After a long while he rubs at his nose, "just thought you should know."

"Is he going to be okay?" It's a foreign question – one she's uncertain if she really wants to know the answer to.

Rick considers her for a moment. "He'll be fine." He gets up and leaves the room, pausing momentarily in the hall when she raises her voice.

"I'd like to start help looking for the girl tomorrow."

Rick glances over his shoulder at her, his jaw tense and his eyes dark. She can see the indecision, the uncertainty, the doubt. He wants to trust her, but he's cautious and careful. "We'll see."

He pulls the door shut. There is no sound of a lock clicking into place; no echo of something barricading the way out. He simply pulls it shut, blocking her from their world.

* * *

There is a tension left in him, something he can't shake. Merle is still there, dancing behind his eyes and laughing at him, taunting him with that shit eating grin of his. He's there in his ear even as he crawls from unconsciousness; he's there in the room even as he blinks into awareness and finds Shane and Rick and Hershel looming over his bed.

"Daryl," Rick's voice makes him wince.

"_Damn_, not so loud."

"Do you remember what happened?" Hershel asks.

"Yeah. Someone _shot _me," he grouses.

"What happened out in the woods, man?" Shane ignores the pointed look from Rick.

Daryl glances between the three men, somewhat overwhelmed by the pounding of his head, and the throbbing of his side, and all the questions. Hershel is looking at him levelly; Shane waits with an expectant look on his face; Rick's jaw tightens over and over.

All three cast a glance down the hallway towards the only other door – firmly shut.

"You went back to where Sophia's doll was found?" Shane's voice is careful.

"Yeah – 'n the trail was a dead end. Thought I'd scout a bit, see if I could get somethin'."

"Did you see anyone in the woods?" Shane glances at Rick; Rick's jaw tenses again. "They do that to you?" He gestures to the bandaged wrapped around Daryl's middle.

Daryl hesitates, his brother looming in his mind. "Nah man – dumb animal spooked and threw me -"

"If you had just asked me, I could have told you that Nelly would have done that," Hershel murmurs.

Rick steps forward, his eyes intent, "you didn' see anyone else out there?"

Daryl sees the way the three men cast varying looks of doubt and suspicion down the hall. "If this is 'bout the girl -" Shane opens his mouth to say something "- she ain't got nothin' to do with this."

The tension in the room freezes.

"And you didn't see no one else?" Shane reiterates.

Daryl scoffs, "nah man. Just a couple geeks. Our trail from yesterday ain't disturbed none either."

The tension in the room relaxes.

Rick glances at Shane – the other man is looking away, out the window towards the golden fields. There is a relief in Rick's glance, as if a burden has been lifted. He sighs and looks back to Daryl, taking in the wrapped bandages. "Hershel says you should be off your feet for a while -"

"- gotta find Sophia."

Rick shakes his head, "and we will. We'll keep lookin' tomorrow. You're gonna stay here, and rest up."

Rick, Hershel and Shane turn to leave when Daryl's voice catches them, "you gonna take Cal up on her offer?"

Shane and Hershel are staring at Rick. Rick's jaw is working, and then he nods, "yeah. I think I might."

As they leave, Carol slips past them with a plate of food and a soft, sad smile.

* * *

She wakes to the soft light of dawn, and rises from the bed. The first few moments on her own two feet are shaky, and then she feels the rush of renewed strength from the first good meal and rest she's had in months. She moves to stand at the window.

The only other person seemingly awake is the young asian man slouched in the lawn chair atop the RV. She watches him, the land sweeping out from the farmhouse, and the silent shapes of the tents. She doesn't know how long she stands there for, but when Patricia and Hershel's daughter, Maggie, as she introduces herself, wanders into the room, she realizes her heels aches.

Patricia eases her to the bed and helps change her bandages. Maggie stands off to the side, a bundle of clothes tucked in her arm. "Thought you might need some new clothes," Maggie says, holding out the pile with a careful smile. "They might fit a little funny."

"Thank you."

Maggie smiles, and eyes the duct taped forearms of Cal's long sleeved shirt. "I don't need them back, so you can do what you need to 'em."

Maggie and Patricia leave, the two woman sliding out of the room with soft and tentative smiles. Cal changes, peeling off her old clothing with a grimace and a sigh of relief. She shrugs the new long sleeve shirt on, and is fussing with the cuffs when someone knocks at the door.

"Come in," she says.

Rick hesitates in the doorway. "Talked to Daryl."

The tension that had existed yesterday, after Daryl had returned worse for wear, had been suffocating. She could only assume he thought she was involved in some way.

"Is he okay?"

"Yeah," Rick nods, and moves through the door with renewed confidence. "Said his horse threw him. Knowing Daryl -" he scoffs lightly "- probably more to it than that, but he won't say nothin'." Cal nods. "He's laid up today – Hershel's orders. I was thinkin' you might like to help look for Sophia."

Cal blinks up at him. When she had asked the day before the intensity and venom in his voice had been startling.

_We'll see._

There were things he needn't say. Brief sentences that carried more meaning than long diatribes. Daryl had been unconscious and injured, hurt by _something _Rick had said. The implications hadn't been spoken – they hadn't needed to. She couldn't fault him his suspicion – it was the only thing that would keep him and his group alive.

He's looking at her expectantly, waiting her reply. She nods, and says, "of course."

He accompanies her out of the house and to the same truck she'd seen yesterday. A small group of people are gathering around it, looming over a fresh map and biting into fresh fruit.

"Want one?" The young asian man she'd seen sulking about stands in front of her. He's holding out a basket of peaches. "I'm Glenn."

"Cal," she says as she takes one. The others around the truck nod in greeting, introducing themselves around their morning meal. Shane, and the cold blond woman, Andrea, hardly acknowledge her. The older gentleman with the bucket hat from the night before, Dale, offers her a reassuring smile, and stands confidently at her side. His ease puts her off, and for a moment she considers moving away.

"It means a lot," he says quietly. When she glances at him sharply he nods towards the short haired woman standing forlornly off near the RV. "To Carol – and the group," he adds. "That you're helping."

She doesn't say anything.

Rick and Shane are quietly discussing areas of the map, while a young man leans over the nose of the truck and points out key areas – developments, small clusters of commercial buildings, farmsteads and ranches. He introduces himself as Jimmy, the boyfriend of Beth. He points out the town in which Cal had come from, and it is only when the silence becomes deafening that she realizes everyone is looking at her. "You came from here?" He asks.

"Yeah," she nods.

"Those men had a truck. They could be anywhere," Shane says.

Rick glances at Shane and then Cal, "gas is still a precious commodity. They take a lot from that pharmacy?"

Cal shakes her head, "I don't know. I don't think so."

Rick's jaw tenses. "What's the nearest town 'sides that one, Jimmy?"

Jimmy points out a larger dot on the map. "Senoia. About forty five minutes from here. Woodbury is another fifteen past that." Shane rubs at his head, and lets out a soft curse. Jimmy glances back and forth between the calm intensity of Rick and the flaring temper of Shane. "What?"

Shane lets out a scoff, "if you jump in your momma's car an' drive to the convenience store, you go to the one closer or further away?"

Jimmy blinks. "Closer, I guess."

"If they're from Senoia, why ain't they goin' to Woodbury? If they're nearer Senoia, why ain't they goin' there? These assholes are probably right on our front step-"

"Shane," Rick warns.

"This ain't just 'bout that little girl anymore, Rick. The safety of the group-"

"What are you suggesting?" Rick grinds out. "We don't know how many there are, or what they're setup looks like."

Shane glances at Cal and Jimmy warily, and then back to Rick, "you _know _what I think."

Rick's jaw is tight. He grinds his teeth for a moment before he glances back to Cal and Jimmy. He points at the map, circling his finger several miles around the town – over an assortment of farms, orchards, and outlying communities. "They're nearer the town. If we give it a wide berth, we'll be less likely to run into them."

Shane scoffs, but Rick ignores him. He points out a farmhouse Daryl had visited several days earlier. "It's close to the creek," Rick says, pointing out where Daryl had revealed the location of the doll. The two points are hardly a mile from on another.

"I think we should send a few of our people that way. Daryl's out for today. I'm thinkin' that Cal, you and I, we're going to -"

Shane scoffs lightly, "I'm comin' with you, man."

Rick shakes his head, "no. I need you to check on this development." He points at one that Jimmy had mentioned previously. It sits on the opposite side of the creek from the town, a few miles out from the general area Rick had drawn around the town. "After practise this mornin', take the best shot with you. In and out."

Shane's jaw clenches and he nods.

Cal doesn't say anything. She glances back and forth between the two men. The tension is electric. When Shane turns and leaves she watches him – the way he walks, the way he _moves. _He's in rut, she thinks. He's tempermental and dangerous and dark – and he means something to Rick.

He means the World.

* * *

**I ****once again want to say how much I appreciate feedback, and so I will once again shamelessly ask for your thoughts on this chapter!**

******I apologize that this chapter took so long, and that there may be a few mistakes. I didn't have a chance to edit it as much as I'd like. ********Also, Cal's presence will begin to affect the events of the series as her position with the group solidifies. I may also play around with the timeline a bit more, depending on how I'm feeling. **

No fun questions for this round, though if you want to ask me something, I'd be delighted.


	10. Chapter 10

They gather in the front yard mid morning. It is there that she sees the majority of the group together – and it is the first time they see her. Most of them eye her warily, though a young boy pressed to Lori's side lights up at the sight of her, and watches her with avid curiousity. Lori smiles tentatively at her as she runs her fingers through his hair.

As Rick and Shane walk ahead to organize with the gathered people, Cal hangs back and bumps shoulders with Glenn. He apologizes profusely before excusing himself. She watches him disappear behind the old RV, and then turns away, only to stare into the face of a short haired woman. She introduces herself as Carol, and for a long moment the two of them stand quietly side by side as Rick and Shane begin organizing the group.

"Alright. We're moving off property," Rick explains. "Don't want any noise we make bringin' anythin' back. The sound might draw a few walkers, and the further we are from town the better."

He doesn't embellish, she notices, and wonders if it's because he hasn't told his people about the other group. However, the way Carol freezes at her side makes her think that they may already know. She glances between several of the others, noting the quiet stillness they've adopted – like prey, she thinks, in the moment it realizes it will die.

Rick motions for the group to follow Shane who leads the way with an enthusiastic Andrea at his side.

Someone's voice raises over the group, explaining they won't be driving – they're more likely to run into the others on the road than wandering through the trees and quiet fields. The group shuffles after them, the solemnity of Rick's words slowly washing away the further they walk, until they no longer are silent, but talking quietly amongst themselves. Rick falls back beside Cal, and another man, T-Dog as he introduces himself, falls to her other side. They smile reassuringly at her, but she can't help but feel they're more of an entourage than anything else.

They walk out and away from the farm, along the boundaries of the property until they're spat out onto a neighbours field.

The practise is quick. Shane takes the reins, leading the group through the necessities. Despite his rather brusque manner, he is a pleasant teacher who presents the group with viable information that lowers the chances of shooting themselves.

"Always tell yourself that a gun is loaded. Even if you ain't sure."

"Don't point the gun at someone 'less you're ready to pull the trigger."

"Live with the choice you make. You have to. Ain't no one goin' to do it for you."

They don't give her a gun. She can't blame them. When the first shot goes off, she jumps. T-Dog stands beside her and gives her a grin."Ain't used to gunfire?"

She swallows. Her mouth is dry and her tongue feels thick. She doesn't say anything, and instead turns to watch the younger boy, Carl, shoot a small pistol. Lori and Rick stand behind him, smiling.

The fence is peppered with bullets in ten minutes, and the group heads back to the farm with hurried steps. Once they return, Shane and Andrea quickly drive off to scout out the housing development a few miles away. Rick is ambling towards Cal when T-Dog lopes up to his side. "I'm coming with you, man."

Rick shakes his head, "I need you here. Make sure no one heads to town."

"Nah man, can't do that see. I'm comin' with you. I'm backin' you up."

Rick sighs, "she had nothin' to do with Daryl-"

"If we run into that other group, you want someone at your back you can trust."

"T-Dog, you're injured, you only just finished up with your antibiotics-"

"I can't stay 'round here another minute. I need to be _out there. _Doin' something."

Rick is quiet for a moment. He would have preferred the other man staying behind.

"Let him go," Dale chimes up from the open hood of the RV. Glenn stands beside him, looking helpless. "We'll make sure nothing happens."

Rick places an appreciative hand on T-Dog's shoulder and nods for him to follow.

Cal greets them quietly on the other side of camp, and Rick hands her her hunting knife. She blinks warily and accepts it before strapping it to her thigh. "You took it?"

"I couldn't be sure," he says.

She meets his eye, and nods. "I understand." And she means it.

"You know how to use that?" T-Dog asks.

Cal's lip twitches, her eyes narrowing with a dark mirth. "I know which end to put where, if that's what you mean."

He lets out a low chuckle, and nods at Rick, "I like her."

They move out through the fields, and towards the wood. The moment they hit the creek she leads them upstream, staying along the shoreline until it begins to climb into the familiar rock face. It isn't long before they're standing at the point she had found the doll, and it is there they find several walkers sprawled haphazardly around. Her eyes narrow when she realizes their ears are missing.

Rick and T-dog shuffle past, trying hard not to look. They take in the scuffed dirt and sand, marvelling at the fact that Daryl even managed to make it back to them. T-Dog prods at one of the bodies when they hear splashing, and turn in time to see Cal clambering over the sandy point bar and disappearing into the bushes. They follow carefully, Rick's fingers tightening around his magnum.

"This is where the trail goes cold," her voice sounds from ahead, and they duck out from the bushes to see her standing over a faint suggestion of tracks.

"At least we know she went this way," T-Dog announces, glancing between Rick and Cal.

The three of them regard the shadowed wood stretching before them, vast and quiet and empty.

"Come on."

* * *

She had almost forgotten what it was like to be around living, breathing people – especially ones that weren't trying to kill her. And she supposed that even if they weren't trying _now, _it certainly wouldn't stop them _later. _The brief bouts of dizziness that sweep over her remind her of Merle, and how he had been perfectly complacent until she had tried to leave.

There was a stark difference between Rick and Merle; one that would have been obvious in the old world, and was obvious well on into the new. Merle had been an abrasive son of a bitch from the moment she found him in the cube van. His fuse had been short and sparked; one wrong word and he would have left her a lot sooner than he had. In comparison, Rick was patience incarnate. He had a quiescence about him – a calm that depended solely on her decisions, _her _fuse.

"House ahead," T-Dog's voice is low.

The three of them pause.

The old house is washed out – greyed and dusty. It reminds her of Betty and Graham's home – a pleasant vacation cabin lost out in the woods -, but years gone bye. The white paint is crusted and falling away; the roof sags lethargically; and the windows have all been smashed away. There is an old rusted shell of a car parked a few metres away, the brambles and brush of the forest coiling possessively around the frame.

They approach it with tentative steps, moving up to and around the perimeter with careful steps. T-Dog flanks them, while Rick moves quietly ahead to peek through the yawning windows. Cal peers past him, blinking wearily at the empty rooms and blank walls.

"This house has been dead a long time," Rick says from ahead, and Cal nods in agreement as they take the stairs of the porch up to the front door. The wood is old and wet, it sags underfoot and is so saturated and rotten it hardly breathes a moan. The door itself is gone – dead leaves and animal droppings line the hallway. The dust of countless seasons is undisturbed and thick on the floor.

They search the house, but it yields nothing. What little remains is long dried up by the years, suggesting the house had died long before the dead had risen. The three of them stand in what once was a kitchen, listening to the wind breathe through the vast and gutless house. It feels real. More real than Betty and Graham's untouched home. It's not the past, but the future, Cal thinks. A crumbling and weathered and dead future.

They leave and wander out into the woods, following the overgrown road that winds through the trees.

For a long while there is silence. Each of them stare ahead, refusing to look over their shoulders at the house shrinking back into the darkening wood. It's only when the house is gone that the tension bleeds away, and Cal releases a breath she hadn't realized she was holding.

"Cal. _Cal. _That stand for anything?" T-Dog glances at Cal, fighting to brighten his expression with a slurred smile.

She shakes her head.

He purses his lips, "What you do before all this?"

She shrugs, "a few things."

"Not very specific," he drones out.

"Not something I think about anymore."

He makes a sound in his throat, and Rick snorts lightly. T-Dog ignores him. "Alright. Where you from?"

She's staring off down the road, her lips twitching as she recalls a life gone bye. "Macon, actually."

"Never been."

"Not surprised. Not a lot to see in Macon."

"Wasn't that where that guy was from... - the one that killed a Senator?"

She nods, "his parents owned the local Pharmacy – nice people."

It's weird. Funny, even. To think of a time when something like _murder _wasn't an everyday inevitability. The normalcy of their conversation is enchanting – disillusioning them to the time and place and _present. _Each of them are wondering of a time when a newspaper wasn't something shrivelled and folded and pressed into a fire, but something planted on their table or into their hands.

"Any family in Macon?"

It's a treacherous question. One that causes Rick to inhale sharply, and T-Dog to wince and mumble an apology. Cal remembers a man and a woman and several years of awkward phone conversations. The last time she had seen her parents had been after a funeral; cold, stark, hurting. Her mother had cried; her father had simply said, _he tried, Cal. Remember that he always tried. _

It had been years since she spoke to them.

"Parents," she says, and T-Dog blinks in surprise. She had every right to not answer; it was simply the way of the world now. "Dad was ex-military."

"Better off than most."

"Maybe."

They turn to silence again. The only sound rising between the three of them is the crunch of gravel underfoot. They don't walk for much longer before Rick is murmuring something, and each of them look off into the trees towards a dark shape set off from the sparse trees around it. They pause, and stand there in the middle of the old road – and they feel the sharp chill of trepidation creep along their spines and nestle firmly in their guts.

Rick moves into the trees, and Cal and T-Dog flank him with careful steps. Cal's fingers are coiled around her knife. Rick's hand is on his magnum. T-Dog clutches his bat with a white knuckled grip.

The saplings – little more than seven feet tall - spit them into a campsite. They stand at the edge, breath still and heart pounding wildly in their ears. The dark tent – a plethora of greens and browns – broods a few meters away from the cold, wet firepit and a stack of soggy, old logs.

"Sophia?" Rick calls softly.

Cal winces.

T-Dog glances over their shoulders, ready for any stragglers to come stumbling from no where.

They move forward, Rick sliding his gun from his hip-holster. Cal's hand curls around his shoulder, and he glances at the buck knife in her hand.

"Quiet-like," she whispers.

She stands off to the side of the flap, her fingers coiling around the edge. Rick take a few steps back and nod – and then she pulls it open.

Nothing, but a dusty sleeping bag.

They move around the campsite, taking in the solitary life this person lived in their last weeks or days. One lawn chair set up beside the fire pit. One dirty plate tucked in an empty bucket of dried scum. One can of soup cracked open and rotting near the stones. One pair of leather shoes still tucked neatly at the tent entrance.

They find the truck tucked back in the trees, as brown and dusty as the tent. The door is unlocked. There are boxes in the back filled with rations, clothes, bottle of water – the kind of things someone would need to _live_. The three of them stand at the tailgate, the indecision a tangible thread they all grasp together.

"The truck's been here a while," Cal is the first to speak.

Rick nods in agreement, "whoever it was, they're probably long gone by now."

"Someone ain't just gonna leave this all behind," T-Dog reaches into the back and hefts one of the few boxes into his arms. "He didn't take his shoes – he's probably a walker by now."

There is a solemnness about his words, but Rick and Cal nod and begin searching through the boxes alongside him. While Rick and T-Dog attack the trunk, Cal moves to the cab and grabs a large pack slung behind the driver's seat. She empties the contents on the ground and sorts through the assortment of personal items the previous owner had stored away.

"We can put some stuff in the pack," she suggests before she turns back to pushing her hands through a series of old, musty clothes. Some of the items she places off to the side, knowing someone in Rick's group would find use for it. And then her hands still on a photo.

She blinks. Once, twice. She looks away sharply, and turns the photo upside down. There had been a man and a child – smiling and laughing. She swallows a sudden thickness in her throat as she tucks it away in the front seat.

She doesn't want to know who they were. She doesn't want to know why there was only _one goddamn sleeping bag _and not two. She doesn't want to know why the boy, Ryan – signed on the back in chicken scratch -, wasn't with his father.

"What's that?" T-Dog motions.

"Someone else's memories."

She digs around in the cab. In the glove box, and behind the seats. The Rick and T-Dog are piling as much as they can into the back pack, when she find the arrows. A pack of them, broken and splintered and useless. She pulls lot of them from the truck and shows them to her companions.

"Too bad," T-Dog grunts. "Daryl would of appreciated 'em. He's a devil with that bow o' his."

She returns to the truck and digs around beneath the seats.

She finds one tucked away in the shadows. A single, unbroken arrow.

* * *

The sun is beginning to dip in the sky by the time they start making their way back. They leave the campsite, taking what they can in the pack. The three alternate carrying it as they follow their own trail back towards the farm.

Rick doesn't hear anything while he's carrying the bag. T-Dog wanders up ahead with careful steps, and Cal walks quietly at his side. He blinks and she's gone, and the next moment he feels the earth tilt as something falls on him from behind. When he scrambles away he realizes the walker is already dead, and Cal is standing there in its stead.

The sun blinks from behind her. Her knife is black.

T-Dog stands off with his bat tight in his hands.

For a long moment they are still. Rick stares up at her, and she down at him. She leans over and wipes the blade off on the thing's jacket.

And then Cal offers him her hand.

"Thank you," he says.

"Wasn't your time, Rick Grimes."

* * *

When they arrive back at camp there is an intensity in the air. Lori is standing off in the tall grasses, staring into the distance; Carol is hovering over a pot of carrots; and Maggie and Glenn are staring vehemently at one another across the lawn.

Rick wanders off to deposit the pack beside the fire, and Cal trails after him.

He hardly realizes she is there until she moves up beside the fire, looking down at the charred logs that let off a wispy plume of smoke. T-Dog has wandered away, and so Rick and Cal stand beside the dying fire. Carol glances at them from her perch nearby, and Rick solemnly shakes his head.

She nods and excuses herself to the RV, clutching at her mouth as if it'll stay the tears threatening to spill from her eyes.

They stand there above the fire, staring down at the embers. Rick rubs at his neck and looks up towards his wife.

"I want to say thank you again. For helping look – and for today."

Cal nods.

"You're probably tired of hearin' how much it means to us, but it does."

She's not looking at him. She can't. It feels weird to be talking to someone – and to be talking to someone like _this. _She had let that side of the world go – she'd let the thought, the idea of gratitude fall away. It had become nothing more than a pipe dream – a legend; it had become something she never thought she'd see, or experience again.

"Where were you plannin' on headin' after this?"

She shrugs, "somewhere. I'll help you look for as long as I can, but then I'll be movin' on."

Rick glances at the empty camp. "You're welcome to stay with us," he says. She glances at him sharply. "If we move on, you're welcome to come."

"You don't even know me," the surprise is evident in her voice.

"No. I don't," his jaw works, and he lets out a soft scoff. "But if we're going to survive _this, _we need to come together to be strong – and we're stronger as a group."

He's taking a chance.

He knows it.

She knows it.

They know that _both _of them know it.

"We'll see," she says.

"We have an extra tent. It's in the RV, if you'd like."

"Thank you."

"I'm hopin' my trust means something," despite the warning he holds out a hand.

She takes it, "it does."

* * *

T-Dog helps her set up her own tent nearer the edge of camp, yammering on about the queerness of _wanting _to be alone. He blubbers when he realizes what he'd said, but she gives him the barest smirk as she presses her laugh into her palm.

It's the first time she's laughed in an age.

Dale brings over a sleeping bag, apologizing that there are no more cots or spare sleeping pads.

"It'll be the ground, I'm afraid," he says.

It is the first time she's really spoken to the man, and she finds herself smiling tentatively as he bustles around her tent complaining to T-Dog about his lack of craftsmanship.

The two bicker quietly, though their words wash over Cal with a warmth that leaves her feeling uncomfortable. She promptly thanks both, and exits the tent; she still has something to do.

* * *

The tent isn't noticeably far from the group, but she can see how it is set back a few feet – as if it doesn't quite want to be there. For a long moment she stands there, staring at the flap hanging loosely from it's zipper. It's open enough to be inviting, but shut enough to not be. She contemplates turning and leaving when she hears a soft curse from behind her – she glances over her shoulder to see an angry Rick storming across the camp towards a wide eyed Glenn.

She promptly dives through the door - and comes face to face with Daryl.

"What're you doin' in here?"

She blinks at him for a long moment.

"You deaf or jus' stupid?"

She watches him as he watches her. He has a scowl on his face. A wound slithering down from his temple. His shirt is open. His side bandaged. His eyes are narrowed and he's biting at his lip like he isn't quite sure what's going on. He's opening his mouth – probably to grumble some more at her – when she reaches up and pulls the crossbow arrow from where she'd tucked it in her pony tail.

"Found this," she says. "Thought you might like another one."

He eyes it warily as she presents it to him. "Pro'lly not the right size," he grouses, taking the arrow into his hand with a tentative glance.

She waits as he eyes it, as he twirls it between his fingertips and runs his fingers along the orange and yellow feathers. He catches the tip on his thumbnail and squints down the shaft, appraising it carefully.

She nods, "right kind?"

"It'll do," he mutters.

She turns to leave when his voice rises up, making her freeze. "You find anything out there?"

She hesitates. She hesitates because there is something in his voice – the barest thread of hope. Considering how rough he is, she's somewhat surprised."Not what we were looking for," she says over her shoulder.

He nods slowly and looks away. "Tell them assholes to quiet down out there. Some people are tryin' to sleep."

* * *

**Finally. Some much anticipated Daryl/Cal interaction - however brief it might have been. Rest easy! From now on there will be significantly more. **

**And once again, thank you to everyone for the reviews, favorites, alerts, etc. They are much appreciated and really let me know how the story is going over for people!  
**


	11. Chapter 11

_I want pinned down_  
_I want unsettled_  
_Rattle cage after cage_  
_Until my blood boils_

* * *

The sun has burnt through the morning chill by the time everyone is awake. No one says a word, their eyes heavy and skin already slick with sweat. The day is going to be hot; the Georgian summer making one last push to drive them haywire.

Cal is propped up inside the house at the Greene's kitchen table, a glass of milk and a plate of eggs sit in front of her. It is only as Hershel peels back the duct tape to reveal the long line of stitches down her side that she looks away from the proffered meal.

"It looks good," he says, pulling out a warm cloth and dabbing at the pinked skin. He cleans it quickly, and places only a thin layer of gauze over the wound before sealing it with the barest suggestion of tape on either end. "Give it a chance to breathe today," he explains. "With the heat and duct tape – well, we don't want it festering."

She nods and lets her shirt fall down. "Thank you."

Hershel tucks a handful of antibiotics into her hand. "Rick seems to trust you."

She blinks and looks out the window towards the group of people slouched around the smoking firepit. Rick is perched beside Lori on a log, their son, Carl, tucked between them. "He seems like a decent man," she says, tossing back the capsules with a mouthful of water.

Hershel makes a sound in his throat, and follows her gaze. "I'd be careful," he murmurs. "I'd be careful how far you entrench yourself in their business. Not everyone in that group shares Rick's conscience."

He excuses himself and leaves quietly.

Cal returns to her meal, mulling over Hershel's redundant warning. In the brief time she had known the group, she had seen the tension roiling beneath. It was subtle, but all storms began in a calm. Shane was Rick's friend, but there was something about the man – a wildness that betrayed the civility Rick was hoping to bring.

She's chewing quietly on a spoonful of eggs when she hears it – the barest scuff of someone's shoe on the floorboards. She glances up, startled from her thoughts. Daryl is standing there at the doorway of the kitchen, an orange pill bottle cradled in one hand.

Cal meets his gaze evenly, and for a long moment they stare at one another. Daryl glances at her plate of food, the cup of orange juice.

"They treatin' you alright," he says with a nod.

The question catches her off guard. She blinks and he's gone – the kitchen door breathing shut behind him. She sits in silence, wondering if he had been there at all.

Cal wanders out from the house after she's eaten. The group is gathered around their smoking firepit, and so she joins them, leaning against a tree near T-Dog. Daryl glances up from his own plate of scattered eggs – she meets his eye for a brief moment, and then he looks away.

The group is quiet. Their faces drawn and tired as they suffer in the heat. Forks and spoons click listlessly against plates. People sip at water, and even pour some on their faces and necks. The silence is insufferable, agonizing, and tense.

Dale is staring at Glenn.

Glenn is ringing his hat in his hands.

"Um, guys?" Their attention is hazy, as if they aren't quite sure the man begging their audience even has words in his mouth. Some lick and chew and suck on the food in their mouths, their attention idle and eyes blank – complacent. "The barn is full of walkers."

And then their complacency vanishes.

They're like deer in headlights, freezing in unison and _waiting. _Waiting for someone to tell them it's a joke, or for something to reiterate and _hit them_ with the truth.

Dale blinks at them all, and then he nods, his voice lending force to the stuttered words of the younger man. "It's true," he says.

Slowly, one by one they all turn and regard the barn looming in the distance – more menacing in it's solitude now that the truth is ringing through their ears; more menacing as the silence of the morning surrounds them fully.

"How many?" Shane is barking, and Rick is suddenly there pushing him away from Dale and Glenn.

"Over a dozen."

Shane pushes past Rick and runs – the rest of the group follows, pulsing behind him like an angry mob. Rick and Lori hang back, hissing soft words.

"If something happens, Rick..." Lori grabs at him. She's panicking. "If Hershel kicks us out-"

Her voice drowns away.

* * *

There were decisions going to be made; choices that would affect the group in more ways than one. A storm was coming, and it would be loud – but the new world didn't have time for noise. It ate up and spat up anything that whimpered or cried or begged.

The day holds a sour note thereafter. Everyone tries to return to normalcy, but always their eyes turn to regard the barn squatting solemnly in the distance. Even after Shane proclaims his intentions to watch the barn, the solitary figure pacing back and forth before the old building is hardly reassuring.

The quiet of camp that had originally driven Cal to her tent eventually drives her back out again. There were only so many times she could rearrange the paltry things scavenged from the Pharmacy in town. She crawls into the heat of the day. Everywhere people attempt to busy themselves, but always their eyes stray back to the barn.

Glenn and T-Dog wave at her from atop the RV. She climbs up beside them.

"Hard to believe, huh?" T-Dog lounges in one of the more comfortable lawn chairs, his bat sitting across his lap. "We've just been sitting here pickin' daisies, and there's a whole barn full of those things just waitin' to bite into us."

She makes a sound at the back of her throat. "It's not a bad idea," she murmurs.

"I know I didn't just hear you say that," T-Dog grunts.

Cal shrugs, "that was one of the things about the city. With that many walkers around, stinking up the place, you knew the only way they'd come after you was if they heard or saw you. Keep quiet, and out of their line of sight – it kept you alive."

Glenn nods, "probably why the farm hasn't had too much Walker activity."

"That and the geography," Cal says, nodding towards the treeline hugging every corner of the farm. Behind the shaded trees lay innumerable cliffs, slick point bars with sucking sand, and waist high mud pits.

The three of them look out across the field, watching as Rick and Hershel move off into the trees. Their attention drifts towards the barn, where Shane moves back and forth in front of the barn door. The door jumps. He moves away and stills, tense and ready.

T-Dog scoffs, "still don't make me feel any better."

Cal shrugs, "it shouldn't."

He looks out wistfully towards the open fields. "Last time we were complacent – well, there'd be a lot more people here today."

Cal stares off into the distance; the solemnity of their new lives settling heavily about them.

It seems as if they sit there forever. The sun bakes their skin, and it isn't long until Cal crawls down from the RV to fetch the dirty bandana discarded in her tent. Her skin feels raw as she spills water on the dirtied rag and tucks it around her neck. When she exits her tent, it's to find Andrea trotting towards the RV.

"I thought you and Rick were going out?" Glenn calls out as she approaches.

"Hershel needed him," she shrugs.

"No one is out looking for Sophia?" Cal can't hide the surprise in her voice, which causes Andrea to scowl.

"Rick should be back in half an hour. We really shouldn't be sending too many people out – not with the barn the way it is."

"They're riled up enough with just Shane over there," Glenn calls down, the concern in his voice apparent. "I'm sure we could spare a few people-"

"Rick's orders," Andrea says up to him and climbs into the RV.

Cal stands there in the dirt, looking out towards the barn. Movement catches her eye and she watches Daryl come hobbling out of the stable with a hand to his side. He makes his way towards the camp, the urgency in his step making him stumble once or twice – his fingers always dart to his side.

"What the hell does that cracker-ass think he's doing?" T-Dog glares across the field.

They watch as he draws nearer, his eyes down and lips tight. They're silent as he passes the RV, as he passes Cal with a sigh of wind. He pushes into his tent and leaves them there in the quiet of the day.

In the distance they see Carol wander out from the barn, her shoulders tired and eyes down.

Cal glances up at T-Dog and Glenn, both of them staring down at her with curious expressions – and then she turns towards Daryl's tent and they both suck in a sharp breath.

The door isn't zipped up. He's sprawled on his back on his cot, arm over his eyes and crossbow arrow twirling idly in his fingers. There is a tightness to his jaw; a tension in his shoulders – a stillness about him that makes the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

Slowly he looks at her, lips tight as he chews on a piece of grass stalk.

They regard one another.

"You going out?"

His arm falls away from his face, and he stares at her openly, unable to hide the suspicion flaring in his eyes. "Why? You goin' to try and stop me?"

She stares at him.

"What's with you women?" He grouses, turning to glare out the screen window.

She glances at his injured side. "If you go out, let me come with you."

His breath catches, and when he looks to ask her what the hell is wrong with her - she's gone.

* * *

She returns to the RV to find it empty and abandoned. Even Glenn's perch is unattended – T-Dog gone with him. She slips up the ladder of the RV, and slouches into the lawn chair – and that's when she sees Dale in the distance, skirting the treeline with a black bag over one shoulder. She blinks and he's gone.

"Dale in there?"

The voice shocks her. She glances down from the shaded perch, and meets Shane's gaze evenly. There is a flaring storminess to his eyes, and a tightness to his jaw. She doesn't know the group very well, but she had known men like Shane in her life.

"Why?" She asks, her expression plain. The word slithers past her lips, and it ignites a disbelief in his careful expression.

And for a moment she sees it – fury.

He scoffs, "I don't have time for this – now, did you see Dale or not?"

Cal doesn't say a word.

Shane lets out a grunt and shoves himself into the RV. It rumbles underfoot, as if he is throwing himself around in its belly. It isn't long until the side-door is thrown open, shuddering against the side, and he's stalking around camp. She watches as he spins around, eyes wild and searching as he takes in the fields and the dark woods surrounding the farm.

"Shane?" Glenn and T-Dog are moving back from the house, hands full with water bottles.

"Which way did he go?" Shane barks and moves towards them. Glenn stumbles back, his eyes wide.

"He said he'd watch-"

"Well, he ain't," Shane glances up at Cal. She's still staring down at him, expression bland and patient.

Glenn blinks up at her and then back to Shane. "He asked us to get water-"

"Perfect," Shane runs a hand over his scalp, eyes wild.

"W-why?"

"He took the damn guns, _that's why," _Shane snaps. He doesn't say anything else; he doesn't wait for them to respond. He turns and storms off towards the trees – towards the darkening wood, and Dale. Cal watches him go; she can't interfere. It isn't her group; these aren't her people.

Glenn and T-Dog crawl up beside her. They watch as Shane moves further and further off into the fields until he disappears into the trees. They are unmoving even as the sun seethes down at them atop the RV, and the splinters of their failing group begin to surface.

Andrea stands ready at the barn; Maggie remains vigilant at the house's porch; Lori and Carl wander sporadically between the house and their tent; Carol meanders back to camp and settles herself at a pot of laundry.

"How'd you do it?" Glenn asks, his voice cracking and breaking with his nerves.

Cal looks at him. She leans back in the lawn chair, and tugs at the scarf hugging her neck; it had dried out at one point, and then dampened with fresh sweat.

"Do what?" Cal looks back towards the treeline.

Glenn shrugs, "get out of Atlanta."

She thinks back on it – all of it. Not just the moments with Merle, but the cop and the cruiser; the apartment closet and the wailing woman and child. She had gotten out of Atlanta without Merle, it had been by some misfortune that she had found him unconscious on the side of the road.

"Alone," she says.

"What about that guy you said you hooked up with for a few days? The one that took your pack," T-Dog pointedly glances at her side and head.

She shrugs, "some scumbag I found outside of Atlanta. If anything I helped _him."_

Glenn winces, "left you stranded up shit creek?"

Cal nods, "didn't even waste a bullet. Just left me there in the middle of the road."

T-Dog and Glenn go still.

"This world is harsh and cold," Cal says absently. "People do crazy things to survive."

The three of them sit there into the day thinking of a man without a hand.

None of them say his name.

* * *

It happens in the afternoon. Shane is storming across the fields alone, a black bag slung over his shoulder. She can already imagine his furrowed brow – low and dark over an inscrutable expression. Rick isn't back yet; she knows what's going to happen.

A shout rises up. People spill out of their tents and gather at the house. Beth and Maggie and Patricia are there, telling them to back down, to back down, to back down. The tension is electric. It sparks and surges through each and every one of them.

"Are you with me?" Shane's words are an invite, but they ring of _more – _they pulse with the certainty of action, of violence, of the here and the now.

Cal stands off from the group. She stands alone and quiet and watching. The group is divided. It splinters further as both eager and reluctant hands take up the proffered guns alike. It splinters even further when someone cries out, and everyone is looking to the barn – to Rick and Hershel and Jimmy leading two Walkers like dogs.

They run.

She stands there in the dirt and watches them. She can hear them yelling.

"I tried," a voice says behind her. She turns to find Dale moving stiffly towards her. He shakes his head. His eyes are light with a misty expression of defeat. "I tried to stop him. I tried."

"I know," she says.

The loud peppering of gunfire jolts the two of them from their quiet. They look up to see the barn doors sighing open, and the first of the walkers pouring out. Dale moves past her, jogging as quickly as he can through the grasses. She watches impassively from the lawn of the house.

These aren't her people.

She can't intervene.

She moves forward slowly. The echo of the gunshots makes her wince. It reminds her of Atlanta those first few days; gunfire echoing like rain against a window pane; days and nights filled with terror as the shots rang on and on – until they promptly stopped.

Cal eyes the green wood surrounding them, briefly imagining a pulsing wave of undead trailing out from hell at their loudness. It sends a shiver up her spine, and she jogs the last hundred metres to the group.

It is as she moves up alongside a panting Dale, and Hershel's crumbling family that the shots finally stop.

The group goes quiet. The quiet sobs of Hershel's family punctuate the soft curses of Rick, and the moans of protest from his wife. Lori clutches fervently at Carl; the boy looks around wide eyed. Nobody notices the door of the barn sighs one last time.

"Sophia?" Carol's voice is a whisper. Everyone blinks.

Cal turns and stares.

The stunned silence is enough for her to know that the small girl emerging from the barn is the one they had looking for.

"Sophia!" Carol lets out a strangled moan. She takes one step forward before Daryl grabs her and holds her back. Her breathy sobs elicit a crackling moan from the tiny, bloodied girl. Everyone is quiet. Nobody moves even as Sophia stumbles eagerly over the bodies of the dead.

A few eyes stray towards Shane. A few eyes watch and wait.

It's the _here _and the _now _and he isn't doing anything.

He simply stands amongst the paralysed firing line, and stares in horror.

And then it is Rick unclipping his Magnum at his hip.

It is Rick moving forward with a gentle sigh.

It is Rick in a Sheriff's uniform, speaking to her in the light of a dying day, and her own question ringing out: _That badge hold any meaning anymore?_

And his answer: _it can. _

It is Rick that slips his gun from its holster – and it is Rick that draws and shoots.

The silence echoes through them all.

For a long moment there is nothing, and then Beth rushes forward wailing.

Chaos erupts. People are yelling, people are crying. A walker clutches at Beth, and everyone shrieks and pulls and tugs.

Hershel yells at Shane. He tells him to leave and never come back. The group surges up and around, shouting protests or agreements.

Hershel turns and walks away. Defeat lines his shoulders.

He splinters.

* * *

The camp is quiet. They're burying the dead family of the Greene's, and burning the rest. The smell of it is brief on the wind. In the distance a black cloud billows into the sky.

She finds the pack leaning against a tree, empty and forgotten – divulged of the goods from their impromptu scavenge the day before. The plastic bag wouldn't get her far, and so she grabs it and tugs it along behind her.

"What are you doing with that?" Dale's voice is shocking in the quiet of camp. Cal blinks uncertainly at him crouched in the doorway of the RV, a bottle of water in one hand and his damp hat in the other.

"Plastic bag won't get me far," she says stiffly.

Dale lets out a breath and plops his soggy hat on his head. Water beads down his forehead. "You're leaving?"

She nods slowly, "you found the girl."

"Rick offered you a place here."

"And I told him _I'd see." _

Dale sighs, "we'd be stronger as a group."

"Maybe," Cal shakes her head, "but not with this one."

He's hurt, but there is something on his face that agrees. He tries not to – he tries desperately to believe the world can hold onto its goodness. He tries to pull and tug and hold on so tightly to the last threads of humanity, but they slip between his fingers – and then away. He is morality; he is the old world; he is unrelenting in his belief that humans can be _good. _He tries so desperately to believe his people are _good. _

She doesn't have the heart to tell him that the world isn't black and white – it's not even grey at this point. It's the colour of blood; dried and crusted and flaking away.

She doesn't have the heart to tell him that his group is more likely to get him killed than keep him safe.

Cal moves into her tent, ignoring Dale's soft protest. She shoves the plastic bag of items into the pack, frowning over how little she truly has. The pack slumps, deflating.

She tugs at her damp scarf.

Dale ducks through the entrance of her tent, disbelief writ on his face. "We would be stronger with _you _here."

She shakes her head, "you hardly know me."

"I know enough," Dale says. "I know that you mean well. I know that you wanted to find Sophia. I know you _know _Shane."

She glances up sharply, "I don't _know _Shane."

"No," Dale agrees. "But I know you can tell what kind of person he is."

Cal stares at him. Dale stares back.

"I don't know anything about the man," she hisses.

She gets up and moves past him out the tent. He follows behind her.

"He killed someone," he says quietly. It doesn't matter – no one is around to hear him anyways. "He killed a good man to save himself."

She looks out towards the billowing cloud – an inky smear across the blue sky. A pristine day marred by the cruelty of the world they now live in.

Dale's words are meant to shock her, but they don't. Instead she remembers the suffocating apartment, the closet with its consuming darkness. She remembers the vacuum pipe in her hands, and the silence – the silence of the city had been absolute.

And then the screams of the woman and her child as they were thrown to the streets, as they were left to die. She could have helped them; she could have lowered the fire escape and let them in.

She hadn't.

She hadn't wanted to risk the walkers following them up; she hadn't wanted to risk the little food and water she did have; she hadn't wanted to risk _anything. _

It haunts her. She can remember the decision, how murky it had been. She hadn't wanted to die, whether it was being eaten or having nothing to eat. While she knows the bitter taste of remorse, she knows Shane most likely does not. Dale was putting too much faith in her goodness; he was hoping he had found an ally amongst the crumbling ruin of his group. He was hoping her disgust would lead to righteousness.

It doesn't.

Cal stares evenly at him. "I've done the same," she says and pushes past him.

"So that's it?" Dale calls after her. "You're just going to leave?"

"I have no reason to stay."

Cal walks towards the house. She doesn't look back, but she imagines he's standing where she left him with some helpless expression of defeated hope.

She enters the house in time to see Beth collapse.

* * *

Hershel is missing, and in the silence of the big house the past hours haunt them.

They stand around in the grey room, their eyes downcast or red or weeping. They look at Beth, pale and still, or out the window into the painfully bright day. They don't look at one another. Lori looks at her hands. Maggie runs her fingers across her sister's brow. Cal is staring out the window.

She had been the first to react. Reaching down to check the girl was still breathing. Maggie had been grabbing at her, but Cal had taken one step and pushed her away.

"You shake her, you might very well hurt her," she'd hissed.

Maggie had calmed down, and between the three of them they had carried the broken girl to her room. It was there that Cal set her on her side, and where she wrapped her in blankets.

"She's in shock," Maggie had said.

"I know," Cal had murmured.

"We need my father."

Cal's jaw had tightened. "I know."

Lori had left to find Hershel, but he was gone – whispered off the farm like the wind.

No one had even heard him leave.

"We need to find him," Rick's voice is like a beacon. The three of them blink from their stupor and turn to him. He stands at the door, eyes on Beth – there is decision in his face. "Where would he have gone?"

Maggie blinks, her eyes red and swollen. She pushes at her forehead as if to shake the thoughts from her skull. There is something in one of her hands, a flash of silver. She lifts it – a flask. "Patton's," she murmurs. "A bar in town."

The silence that follows is thick and heavy and sucks the air out of their lungs. One by one they glance at one another; one by one they look to Cal, and remember the tidings she had born.

Rick is staring at the ground, at his shoes, at his wife, and at Cal. He opens his mouth and closes it. He sighs and breathes and sweeps from the room. Maggie trembles beside her sister. Lori leans forward into her hands. Cal stares out the window, across the fields to the burning pile of corpses.

They're crumbling to ash.

Movement catches her eye. She watches a tent unfurling in the distance, a field apart from the camp. The black motorcycle parked beside it only reaffirms what she had already guessed.

"Daryl's moved," she says.

"What?" Someone asks, but she doesn't reply.

The sound of voices startle them, and one by one they turn to regard the open door. Rick's voice drifts up to them. Both Cal and Lori stand and leave the room. Maggie doesn't move.

In the kitchen there is a storm. It rattles the house with its quiet words. Shane is shaking his head. Glenn is pleading. Rick's face is tilted to the ground and his eyes are shut.

"I don't know if we can," Rick says.

"We can't,_" _Shane mutters. When Rick glances at him, Shane glowers back, "we _can't _and you know it."

Rick blinks, and when he replies his voice drips with intensity. "I _know_. But we can't just leave him out there."

Shane's eyes harden,"It would solve a lot of problems, man."

"Wait—what?" Glenn's voice rises from somewhere in panic, bewilderment, disbelief.

Rick's jaw sets, "we are _not _having this discussion."

He goes to turn away, but Shane is suddenly there – large and dark and stormy. "Yes we are, Rick."

Rick's eyes meet Lori and Cal in the dark of the stairwell. They stand side by side and watch him. He meets their silent scrutiny; he shoulders it readily.

"You go out there, and those men out there might just follow you back. You want them to come here, man? Find Lori? Find _Carl?" _Rick doesn't say anything. Shane bristles. "And for what? So we can pack our bags and get gone by morning?"

Rick turns then, his eyes calm and cool. "I am not leaving him out there."

"Those girls need their father. _We _need Hershel," Lori hisses from the stairs. Her voice is enough for Shane to pause. He hesitates when he meets her eye – and then he turns and leaves.

"I'm coming with you," Glenn says. Rick freezes and turns to face him.

"I can't ask you to do that."

"You're not. I'm going. You _need _me. You need people that know that town. We get in, we get out – they'll never know we were there."

Rick is quiet, his jaw tightening. There is truth in Glenn's words. Everyone in the room can feel it. The two men stare at one another for a long moment, and then there is the barest shift in Rick's expression – consent.

"How many others have you run into?" Cal asks. "Asides from me, and each other."

Rick's eyes harden, "had a misunderstanding with some good people – and one other man and his son. They saved me, gave me food and shelter."

"You were lucky then, Rick," her voice hushes the house into a petrified quiet.

Rick's eyes narrow as he takes her in. "What exactly are you saying?"

"Don't hesitate to shoot first."

* * *

They leave shortly thereafter. The group is quiet.

Cal wanders out from the house with pack in hand. She ignores the pleading look from Dale from his perch atop the RV, and chucks the half empty pack back into her tent. She stands in the threshold for a moment, considering the small pallet she had had made up the day before.

She turns from it, refusing to further delve into the kindness the group had shown her – even going so far as to offer her a permanent home with them. It was difficult to accept something so tempting when the very foundations of that home threatened to crumble away.

"I thought you were leaving?" T-Dog asks from the fire. Cal blinks at him. "Dale told me you were thinking about it."

She glances at the house. "Not until Hershel's back with his daughters."

"I think you should stay," T-Dog's honesty makes her pause. She glances at him out of the corner of her eye. "I saw how you handled that walker on Rick – we could always use someone who knows what they're doing."

"Groups make me uncomfortable. I like being alone."

T-Dog's lips thin as he pushes around sizzling ground beef in a pan. A moment of silence stretches on, and then he turns and eyes her hard. "Even if you're going to die alone?"

She blinks, and then swallows.

"That's what I thought," he says, wiggling the spatula at her.

The two of them are silent, and then T-Dog jerks his chin towards the chair at her side. "Mind tossin' me those," he asks, indicating the orange bottle of pills on the lawn chair. She does.

"What happened?" She nods towards his bandaged arm.

T-Dog grimaces, shaking his head with a scoffing laugh. "Got a little too desperate. Cut my arm on _something. _Herd came up on us -" at her blank expression he explains, "a group of walkers ain't like we'd ever seen."

"They're travelin' in groups now," the new voice cuts in, and the two of them blink up at Daryl. He stands off to the side, crossbow slung across his back, empty water bottle in hand. "Migrating or somethin'."

Cal blinks, remembering the group of walkers that had loped behind them during their narrow escape from the strip mall. They had stumbled out from whatever hell they endured to amble along behind the rest. The group had been colossal; a twisted marvel only Atlanta could have spat out at them.

"You think they're savvy to something?" She asks.

Daryl fills up his water bottle from a bucket of boiled water. He glances over his shoulder and shrugs, "nah. They're dumb. They ain't got nothing but loose rocks up there."

"Was that the only group you ran into?"

"Like that? Yeah." Cal stares down at her hands. T-Dog chews thoughtfully on a handful of his pills. Daryl turns and leaves. T-Dog and Cal watch him move off and away, out into the field and across to the treeline where the faint outline of a tent squats amongst the saplings.

"Look, I bet it's nothing," T-Dog mutters around the mouth of his water bottle.

"Maybe," is the only word she says.

Dale crawls down from atop the RV and makes his way towards them. Cal stiffens, and moves away from the cluster of tents. She can hear T-Dog's laugh at her retreating back, and Dale's confused voice calling after her. She ignores it and heads into the fields, eyeing the plume of smoke curling above Daryl's lonesome tent. The setting sun casts the world in a familiar blue tint; the smoke is vibrant against the dark wood behind it.

They haven't said more than a few words to each other, but her feet guide her towards his small encampment. He doesn't look up from the sapling he whittles. The twig's bare body gleams in the fire light.

She sits down on the ground with her back to the farm, her eyes drawn to the shadowed mouth of the forest not more than a hundred feet away. She would never have felt safe sleeping here, but she supposes she no longer feels safe sleeping near Shane either.

"Do you need help?"

He shakes his head.

They sit on into a long silence. He doesn't ask her to leave, but neither does he ask her to stay. She sits apart from him, her hands running through the dead grasses around her. The fire crackles low and the sun sets before either makes a sound, and even then it's the barest hiss of breath as Daryl shifts against the crumbling cairn at his back.

Cal glances up from the fire. She watches the discomfort play across his face, though he tries to hide his hiss with a mumbled curse. His fingers are tense around the sapling and knife, his jaw tight as he concentrates on discarding the pain. Cal looks away when he glances up.

"Do you need something?" She asks, familiar with the pain he must be feeling. Her own side flared with heat; irritated and tainted by sweat.

"I'm fine," Daryl grouses, fingers darting to his side. He draws in a breath before he settles back, shifting to accommodate the wound. After a moment he sighs, his eyes growing heavy with sudden reprieve.

Cal's lips thin."Maybe you should have Patricia take a look at it-"

"I said I'm fine," he snaps, glaring at her. She meets his gaze evenly. He doesn't notice her fingers coiling around the end of her knife.

Without a word she stands, brushing herself off. She turns and moves away from the glow of the fire, her steps quiet even atop the sun-scorched grasses crumbling under foot.

"Thank you."

His voice startles her. It shatters the quiet of the night, and she blinks back over her shoulder at him. He refuses to look at her, his eyes to the fire.

"For what?"

"For protecting Sophia."

She's confused for a moment.

"At the creek," he clarifies. "When you wanted to know who she was to me. She ain't my kid, but she meant somethin' to the group."

"And that's why you're out here, isn't it?" Cal asks.

"Group's broken," Daryl rasps to the flames. "I was just trying to fix it."

There is a melancholy about him – something quiet and wounded. He stares longingly into the flames as if the fire itself holds the answers; it reminds her of Merle, bewildered and frightened as he murmured quietly to himself after discovering his brother may have succumbed to the inferno.

A destroyed hope.

"There ain't nothing left," he says.

* * *

**Thank you for your patience, and your continued support! There really is no excuse to this chapter's delay, except that it was proving difficult to write. I'm not particularly a big fan of following the original content so closely, but there are some key elements in these scenes that are important to character and group development. Even with the addition of Cal, I couldn't justify changing some of the most important moments for the canon characters. **

**I apologize for any mistakes. **

**Please leave a review!**


	12. Chapter 12

She hadn't slept well. Rick and Glenn and Hershel hadn't returned, and she had repacked her pack several times over before crawling onto her sleeping pallet. She had lulled herself into a fitful sleep with promises of leaving when Rick and Hershel returned – and then she had dreamt of lightning storms and a tilting sky and an endless wave of walkers crashing against the farmhouse.

The morning is a slow affair. She dresses her wound with a few dabs of polysporin, wincing as the skin tightens over her ribs. She grimaces as she slides into her shirt, and ties her hair out of her face.

When she steps into the world, the rest of the camp is quiet. Shane sits atop the RV, though he hardly casts her a glance. Carol squats in front of the fire, pushing something akin to eggs around and around in the pan. Her expression is grim, her lips perpetually turned downwards in some semblance of a frown.

Cal turns, and nearly bumps into Carl. The boy apologizes while he rubs the sleep from his eyes, and yawns up at her. His mother stands behind him, fussing with her belt. Cal notices the scrapes on her face and shoulders and hands; Lori notices her interest and pats Carl on the bum.

"Let's go see if they need help in the house," she murmurs, and as they pass Lori gives Cal a nervous smile. Cal watches her retreat with a knitted brow. Lori doesn't look back.

"Eggs?" Carol's soft voice breaks Cal out of her stupor, and she accepts the proffered plate with a strained smile. The two women sit into the quiet morning, the grey light bleeding away as the sun crawls above the horizon. Eventually Shane crawls down to gather his own plateful of eggs, but he hardly stands around long enough to shove his few spoonfuls into his mouth before crawling back onto the RV.

Carol's painful quiet eventually forces Cal to suck at her teeth and break the silence.

"What was Daryl doing in the barn yesterday?"

Carol stiffens, "he was going out." _To look for Sophia, _she doesn't say.

She doesn't need to.

"He should of been on bed rest," Cal comments around a mouthful of eggs.

Carol nods, "I told him as much."

Cal blinks, noting the slouch to the woman's shoulder, the beaten quiver of her hands. She sucks on the end of her spoon, and nods, "good."

Carol smiles – brief and fleeting.

The two women resume their quiet, the uncomfortable silence slinking away to resemble something more hospitable – and almost _comfortable. _

Eventually, the rest of the group joins them. They stumble out from their tents or the RV, slumping into the assorted lawn chairs littered about the fire. Carol dishes out a few more platefuls of eggs, and everyone becomes quiet as they try to appreciate their morning meal.

It's only as Daryl joins them that they hear the faint rumbling of a vehicle break the silence of the morning. Each and every person freezes, their eyes growing wide or moving to the lone SUV that rolls down the drive. For a long moment they are still, eyes wild as they take in the vehicle and then the long empty road behind it.

Nobody is following them. The group breathes a collective sigh of relief.

One by one they move, finishing their eggs and dumping their plates in an empty bin. The group beelines for the house, Shane galloping ahead of them with the watch rifle slung over his shoulder.

There is a silent relief as the three men step from the SUV; the group is silent as they take in their dark eyes and ashen faces. Hershel is shaken, and Glenn's hands tremble. Rick leans against the vehicle, and looks to Cal with a darkness in his eyes. She lifts her chin, and he nods.

"Did you see others?" Andrea asks. As soon as the question leaves her mouth, the rest of the group surges forward with their fear and anxiety.

"Do you think they followed you?"

"How many were there?"

"Were they armed?"

"What are we going to do?"

"Who is that?"

The last one draws a sudden silence. One by one everyone turns to look at the back seat of the SUV. The burlap sack tucked over the person's head is enough to make them clutch at one another and bristle and glance about warily.

Rick rubs at his eyes, and Hershel looks pleadingly at his eldest daughter who reaches out for Glenn. Glenn in turn presents the group a sheepish grimace. "That's Randall."

"You brought one of them _back here?" _It's Shane that voices his outrage for the group. He bristles, his lips pulling back in a snarl. He stalks towards Rick, confusion and anger flaring in his eyes. "Do you not remember what _she _said? Your last stray?!"

Cal watches Shane carefully, her jaw clenching as he throws a finger at her. She isn't particularly fond of being called a _stray, _though she supposes the term is correct if nothing else.

Rick's voice is calm and quiet, "I remember."

Shane glowers.

"We couldn't leave him there. We got overrun by walkers."

"He's hurt," Glenn supplies.

"Is he bit?" Lori asks.

"Is he going to die?"

"He shouldn't be here!"

Rick holds up a hand and the group grows quiet. "We're going to patch him up."

"And then what?" Andrea asks.

Rick's face is dark, "we'll see."

Silence is the only response.

They fetch Randall from the car, and between Glenn and Rick they manage to carry him inside the farm house. The group remains muted even as they pass, the stench of blood and vomit wafting to their noses. Lori turns Carl's eyes away when they spot the wrecked skin of his mutilated leg.

"Oh shit," T-Dog grimaces.

Andrea's face goes grey, and she steels herself against the smell. Dale places a placating hand on her shoulder.

When the door wheezes shut behind them, the group disperses. They wander back to camp, a new tension settling about them.

Shane doesn't move. He is shaking with anger; his eyes flaring. He runs a hand over his face and turns away. Cal stands a few feet away, her gaze bland and even as she meets his own.

"You think you might know that kid?" Shane asks, his voice low.

She glances over his shoulder towards the door, towards the curtain being drawn in the same bedroom she'd stayed in. Cal looks back to Shane. She doesn't like him; he's too unpredictable and violent. Everything about him screams dominance and madness.

But for the sake of the group, she knows she can't keep her mouth shut. "If I saw his face."

"How many were there?"

"A couple. I only got a good look at a few of them."

Shane is shaking his head, "he knows better. Rick _knows _better."

"Didn't sound like they had a lot of choice," Cal drones.

Shane scoffs. "We can't have him leading his friends back here."

Cal's expression is carefully poised, "what exactly are you suggesting?"

He looks at her, "I think you know."

"You want to... _off_ him," she can't bring herself to say it – it's foreign and heavy and even a little too far past the edge of her own twisted mortality. The woman and child are brief flares in her memory; she dealt enough with her inaction having led to their deaths. She can't fathom being the one to drive a knife through a man's chest.

"If he's one of those creeps from town, you really think we should just be lettin' him wander back to his people?" She doesn't say anything, and when she looks away he ducks down to catch her eye. "Well?"

She glowers at him, "If he's one of those guys from town, you won't need to worry about what I'm thinking."

"Cal?" Shane and Cal look up to see Rick walking towards them, his jaw tight and working. "Hershel needs to operate."

There is more to the statement – a question that doesn't need to be spoken. The three of them stand there, a subtle tension flowing between them that grows and grows until Cal is blinking and wiping at the sweat beading on her brow. She nods to Rick and moves to follow him.

She brushes past Shane, and for a moment their eyes meet.

"Remember what I said, Cal," he says.

The three of them move towards the house.

* * *

The living room is stifling. Glasses of cool water sweat onto the wooden table, and a bowl of peaches sits untouched. The screen door breathes with a gust of wind, carrying in the sweet smell of a dying Georgia summer.

They stand about the room, staring at one another or at the door tucked down the hall. Cal looks out the window, fingers vigilant at the hilt of her knife. Hershel watches Rick and Shane, lips thin as he considers the two men. Glenn fidgets with his hat, staring down into his hands with a pained expression on his face.

At once the silence is broken. Cal lifts her chin to Rick and asks in a quiet voice, "what will you do if he is one of those men from town?"

Rick pinches the bridge of his nose. "What can we do?"

"You know what we _should _do," Shane says.

"Wait," Glenn's eyes widen. "Are you suggesting-?"

"We have to be prepared for that possibility."

"We don't know anything yet," Rick murmurs quietly to Glenn.

"But what if he's not part of that group?" Glenn glances down the hall.

"Then we'll drive him out when he has a better chance – and cut him loose," Rick says.

Shane's brow furrows, "we can't -"

"We don't know _anything _yet," Rick repeats.

"What if he _is_ a part of that group? What if they come looking for him? Or we let him go and he leads 'em back here?"

Rick's jaw works. Shane stares back defiantly. "His group left him for dead. I doubt they're looking for him."

"You can't know that," Shane says.

"And we can't just decide who lives and who dies," Rick hisses. "Not like this."

"Innocent until proven guilty, right?" Glenn suggests. Shane glowers at him.

Rick glances at Hershel. "What do you think?"

"I don't know, but we need to decide fast. If we wait any longer infection will set in – if it hasn't already."

The others start when Cal stands abruptly. She moves down the hall. Rick moves to follow her. The door hardly squeaks when it opens, and for a long moment the two of them stand in the threshold in uncertainty. The room is noticeably different from her time lost in delirium – it's darker, and the ripe smell of sweat and blood is thick on the air.

The boy on the bed isn't unconscious. He's staring at the ceiling with a heavy expression; pain and fever cloud his vision. His skin is grey and sweating, and if the situation had been different she knew she'd suspect him of being bitten. She takes a step forward; he's unbound.

The floorboard squeaks under her heel, and the boy – Randall – glances at her. For a long moment they're stuck; for a long moment neither can look away. She sniffs lightly, and says: "Someone will be in here to help you shortly."

She can feel Rick behind her. She can feel the sigh he releases. They turn and leave. Randall's eyes burn into her back.

Shane and Hershel stand when they re-enter the room. Glenn leans forward. "Well?" He croaks out, his voice quivering.

Cal stares out the window. The camp is quiet in the distance, though she can see Lori leaning over Carl, and Carol quietly picking at the laundry. She feels a sourness rising in her throat. She can feel hot breath running down her neck – when she reaches to rub it away, she realizes it is nothing more than a phantom.

No one is there.

"He was with them," she says as her hand falls away from her neck.

She meets Shane's eye.

Rick is rubbing at his face, and then he's suddenly there in front of her. "Are you sure?"

She blinks at him, "yes."

"That's a man's life."

"_I'm sure._"

Glenn's voice rises in a soft panic. "So we _are_ just going to kill him?"

Rick holds up a placating hand, "nobody is saying that -"

"We can't have him leading his friends back here," Shane snaps.

"And he has friends," Cal murmurs.

Rick turns to look at Hershel, but finds nothing in the man's face. "I'll operate if you think it's best, but he poses a threat to us, Rick. To your wife – to Beth -" Hershel glances at Glenn, "- and Maggie."

Glenn looks at the ground, his lips thinning in realization.

Rick rubs at his face.

"You know we have to do this, man," Shane's voice rises over the low sound of Glenn groaning into his hands. "We can't just let him go."

Rick stares long at the ground, his jaw tight and teeth grinding. The room falls to silence as the situation settles more heavily in their guts. The rules of the old world were crumbling around them, while the rule – the only _real _rule - of this new age was rearing before them like some great storm: _adapt or die. _

She doesn't like Shane. She doesn't like how loud he is, or vehement, or dangerous. She doesn't trust him, but Rick does. Rick loves Shane.

"Listen to Shane," Cal's voice is low and pleading. She understands Rick's hesitance, but a decision has to be made.

Shane glances at her in gratitude. "Listen man," he says to Rick. "Eventually we're going to have to accept that the world's changed. You need to do the hard things to protect your family – to protect Carl, and Lori."

Rick glances up from the floor and meets Shane's eyes. Something passes between them.

"Can't we just drive him out and leave him somewhere? He doesn't know where we are," Glenn asks.

Everyone glances at Rick.

They force his hand.

Rick's jaw tightens. A resolve flares to life in his eyes. "We can't," he says. "If we let him go, we're responsible for what he does."

Shane lets out a breath, his victory evident in his eyes.

They go silent again. In the quiet of the living room they each stare down at their hands and imagine the colour red staining their skin. Eventually it's Shane that speaks, his earlier intensity curbed by the victory of his pleading.

"Who will do it?"

"I will," Rick says with a nod.

"What will we tell the others?" Glenn asks.

"We'll tell them the truth."

"We should talk to him first." Everyone starts and glances up. Daryl moves through the screen door, his eyes narrowed as he takes in the reluctant council. "See if we can get any info 'bout his group. I'll do it."

Rick nods slowly, "you sure?"

Daryl nods – and then his eyes meet Cal's.

"I'll help," she says without pause. Rick's voice rises in protest. Cal doesn't look away from Daryl. "I heard things. I'll be able to tell if he's lying."

For a long moment it looks like he'll say no, but then he nods: "Alright."

* * *

She dabs the sweat from his brow, and sponges cool water past his lips. The chill of the cloth in her hands is the only thing grounding her – that, and Daryl's soft breathing at her back.

Randall is staring at her, the fever in his eyes doing nothing to dampen his silent scrutiny. Occasionally he glances at Daryl, though he shies with a strangled moan and looks back to Cal.

They've hardly been in the room for more than five minutes when he finally speaks, his voice desperate and wavering. "Am I going to die?" For a long moment no one says a word. The silence stretches on; the tension rises until Randall sputters in fear. "I'm too young to die."

"Ain't nobody too young," Daryl rasps coolly.

"We just went lookin' for our friends, ya know," the kid snivels. His eyes are on Cal, as if he thinks she'll offer him any more sympathy than Daryl. The cloth in her hands feels heavy – she drags it roughly across his throat, making him quake. "Your friends shot first."

"Ain't the way I heard it," Daryl bites at his thumb, seemingly nonchalant.

"You got a lot of friends?" Cal asks softly, surprised that her words aren't crumbling past her lips. She feels like shaking.

Randall blinks at her and then eyes Daryl cautiously. "They're good guys, ya know. Just tryin' to live."

Cal makes a sound in her throat. She wrings the cloth into the bucket, watching as the clear liquid begins to go grey. "Just looking for more time," she suggests. He nods enthusiastically, his eyes lightening as he realizes she understands. "Yeah, I know what it's like."

"Then you know we don't mean no harm."

"We've all had to do things for _more time," _she ignores him.

"Yeah," he blinks at her.

"Is that why they left you behind?" The cloth slides down his arm – she scrubs at his fingers. He says nothing, and she feels him tense under her hand. Her grip tightens; she turns his hand over and scrubs at his palm.

"They thought I was dead."

She makes a sound in her throat.

"They _thought I was dead,_" he repeats.

She shrugs and releases his hand. He tucks it against himself.

"We've all been left behind one way or another," she says.

"How many boys you got?" Daryl's voice is muffled from behind his hand.

Randall blinks slowly, glancing back and forth between the two of them. "What's this about?"

"What do you think this is about, half-pint?"

Randall lets out a whimper when Daryl takes a step closer. "Please, I don't know nothing."

They go quiet, allowing the boy's panic to settle. She can feel his eyes on her – her skin crawls. She tries to ignore him, and begins to clean his other arm.

"You from around here?" Daryl asks.

Randall glances at Daryl over Cal's shoulder. "I ain't going to talk to you," he says with a whimper. His eyes fall to Cal. "I'll talk to her."

"You ain't in any place to make demands," Daryl growls.

Randall whimpers again. "I ain't going to say nothing then."

She can feel him crackling behind her. "I ain't leaving you alone with her."

"You have something to say Randall, you can say it in front of him," Cal says.

Randall stares at her long and hard, his eyes darting every which way over her face. It isn't long before she can see it – the sudden flare of recognition. "Do I know you from somewhere?" He asks.

She can hear the smallest intake of breath from behind her.

"We met in town."

Randall's expression is careful. His brow furrows thickly over his eyes, his lips thin as if he can't quite comprehend what she's saying. "I don't know what you're talking about," he says, his voice catching.

"You're right," Cal sits back. "We didn't actually meet. We had brief run-in. I think it was down Centre Street. Nice place."

It throws him for a loop. She can feel him tense again. She can feel Daryl's interest pique as he looms over her shoulder. The young man sniffs and sputters, more indignant and surprised than afraid. "She's crazy, man. I ain't never seen her before," he calls desperately to Daryl.

"Ain't what you said before," Daryl rasps.

Randall glances back at her, his fear evident, but his tongue tied. He lets out a gurgled moan and sinks as far from her as he can. She wrings the cloth into the bucket – the water swirls black.

"How long have you been using that town, Randall?"

He groans.

"Answer her," Daryl is suddenly there, one hand fisted into the boy's collar. Randall squeals.

"Not long," he shouts. "We was just passing through, ya know?"

"You best be telling the truth," Daryl growls, and reaches towards the knife tucked at his belt.

Randall quakes, but remains silent. His eyes meet Cal's over Daryl's shoulder, "help me, please."

She turns her face away as Daryl's knife slides from its sheath. He leans his elbow across the boy's chest and drags the tip along Randall's leg. He bucks under Daryl's weight, his eyes white with fear. "O-okay! Okay!" He shouts. "I grew up 'round here. They took me in-"

"How many?" Daryl asks.

"Something like thirty," Randall gasps.

"And?"

"And... they took me in. Just a bunch of guys, ya know? Good guys."

"How long have you been with them?" Cal's voice is low.

Randall quivers, "like a week-" Daryl pushes down on the tip of the knife, the skin casting a single red ribbon down the side of Randall's leg. The boy cries out. "A month. I've been with them a month."

"So they ain't moving around a lot, huh?"

Randall quakes.

"And you grew up here?" Cal asks.

"Yeah," Randall stares at Daryl, at the knife pushed against his leg, at Cal who sits impassively by and watches with a bland expression. "I know Hershel – nice guy. I went to school with his daughter Maggie."

The room goes still.

A breath catches in Cal's throat, and she meets Daryl's eye over his shoulder.

"I have to empty the bucket. The water is dirty," she stands and moves towards the door, the basin tucked under her arm.

"You best talk," she hears Daryl mutter.

And then the soft sound of Randall crying out in pain.

The door clicks shut behind her, and she returns to the living room. Glenn, Hershel, Shane and Rick are all staring at their hands.

"He knows Hershel," she says. "He recognized him." They don't look up from their hands, but she can see their shoulders slump. Glenn lets out a soft moan.

She stands in the doorway for a long moment, and then she moves to the kitchen to dump the water. The sink turns grey as the water swirls down the drain.

She stands at the counter at length, watching the clouds bulge in the sky. Eventually they break, and it begins to rain. Thunder sounds in the distance; she stands in stillness until it rolls and cracks overhead.

She stiffens when Rick leans against the counter.

"You think we should kill him," Rick says, more statement than question.

Cal blinks. The rain patters against the window sill. "We don't really have a choice."

"We always have a choice," Rick grits out. "That's what separates us. Us and the dead_. _We can choose to be better. We can make choices, and we can live with them."

"And if we choose to kill him?"

Rick's jaw tightens, "that's a choice I'll carry."

Cal turns to him, "is it something you _want _to carry?"

Rick's eyes burn. "I killed two men last night," he says in a low voice. "They drew on us, and I killed them. Some people might say I had no choice, but I did what I had to to protect the group."

"You'd do it again."

"I would. I will," he says. They turn when Daryl moves into the kitchen followed by Hershel, Glenn and Shane. Cal notices the red blossoming on Daryl's knuckles; she looks away when he catches her eye.

"Group's large," Daryl rasps. "They ain't good people."

"You can't go looking for them," Cal says to Rick.

"I wasn't planning on it."

"Ain't be much use," Daryl says. "Kid said he had no idea where they might be. They move around a lot."

"Maybe they'll move on," Glenn murmurs.

"Nah," Daryl shakes his head. "Said he'd been with them for a month. They ain't left yet. They just move around this county."

"But they _might," _Glenn pleads.

Shane is quiet. His eyes are hard. His hands run over his head, fingers pushing at the scabby bald patch near his temple.

"Maybe," Rick nods. "But we should prepare for the possibility -" he glances at Hershel "-that they don't."

"This is my farm," Hershel frowns. "I'll die here."

"How many were in that group in town?" Rick asks Cal.

"Three or four."

Rick's jaw tightens and he nods. He glances at Hershel. "We need to be prepared for the possibility."

Hershel's lips tighten, "I know."

"We'll need our guns."

"I know."

"And we'll need to _stay _together."

Hershel glances at Shane, "I know."

"If they find us -" Rick's hand shakes, though he tries to stop it. "If they find us, we can't let them go. We can't have them leading the rest of their group back here."

"And what about Randall?" Glenn asks, his face grey.

Rick shakes his head and looks to Cal and Daryl. "You're sure he said he knows Hershel?"

They both nod. "Mentioned Maggie too," Cal says.

Hershel grimaces. Rick frowns. "We can't let him go."

The group is quiet. They soak in Rick's words, ruminating on the cold truth of their situation. Shane nods, stands and leaves; the door hisses shut behind him. One by one the others slink away. It's only as Daryl turns to leave that Cal finally moves – she walks behind him, out of the house towards the camp.

Her eyes wander along his bloodied knuckles.

"Are you going to clean those?" Her voice is hardly a whisper over the thunder rumbling in the far distance.

Daryl shrugs. "They ain't much."

"At least wash them up."

"I'm fine," he grouses.

She makes a sound at the back of her throat, and moves past him towards her tent. As she slides the zipper along its track, she sighs. "I uh - Thanks," she says.

Daryl hesitates and glances over his shoulder. "For what?"

"For having my back in there," she pauses, her breath tight in her chest. There are words she doesn't say, but in truth she doesn't need to.

Daryl had seen her tension. He had seen her try to hide behind her bland expressions. He knew what it was like, sitting beside someone who had terrorized him. Every day that he had endured his father's beatings, he had thought of how simple his life would be if the man had simply died.

He blinks at her, his lips thinning as he rolls over her words. And then slowly, he nods.

"You should get your hands looked at."

He glances down at his knuckles – bloodied and raw and weeping. Old scars that have split and bled. He can't help but think of his father – and Merle. They wouldn't have noticed.

But she did.

His brow furrows. "I'll think 'bout it," he says.

She looks at him for a long moment, a smile pulling at the corner of her mouth. And then she turns and leaves.

He watches her go. He doesn't look away until she's out of sight, and he doesn't know why.

* * *

**This is where the story line begins to diverge more from canon. Cal's presence and influence on events becomes more evident, as seen with the early discovery of Randall's sinister history - and his knowledge of the Greene Farm. Any events hereafter will no longer be as predictable before. People will live, and people will die. **

**And look, a Daryl moment! **

**Please review. I crave them. **


	13. Chapter 13

The rain washes away the grime. It settles the smoke from the burning bodies. It kisses the graves of the dead, and lays them to rest. In the distance the thunderstorm rolls– galloping on into a new county.

Cal watches it from the fields. She watches the dark clouds billow and bulge. From a distance she can see the lightning strikes; from a distance she can feel the wind rush under and over; from a distance she can see the rain fall. She imagines it is falling on others – good people just trying to survive.

She pushes her bare toes down and into the earth; her head tilting back as the cool dew sweeps across her skin. She can imagine their looks – Shane probably thinks she's bizarre. Dale probably worries. Rick will accept it. Daryl watches in quiet.

She can see him lounging beside his tent. She can see the blur of his knife. She can see the pile of arrows he's made. She can see his eyes, and she meets his quiet stare. There is no judgement from him, only a soft contemplation as he works.

"What are you doing out here?" T-Dog's voice is low. It rolls across the grass.

"I'm watching the storm," she says, turning her gaze from Daryl to the roiling clouds in the distance.

"Sounds like something you'd do," he chuckles at her side. For a long moment they stand in quiet, watching as the sky bubbles with menace. T-Dog coughs into his hand. She glances at him."Rick told us."

The illusion falters. The harsh grass beneath her toes begins to poke into her skin. The wet grass under her toes forces a chill. The thunder clapping in the far distance is _too loud. _"And what do you think?" She asks, bending over to shove her feet back into her boots. She grimaces at the worn laces and breaking seams; at the water seeping in to wet her socks.

T-Dog shakes his head. "I think we should be done with it."

"You think Rick should kill him?"

He shrugs, "I don't know what to think. But I know one thing – I don't want him or his buddies showing up here."

Cal nods and stands. "You should tell Rick that. He needs support in this."

They head back to the camp. Upon arriving they find Glenn perched atop the RV, his eyes vapid as he looks out across the fields. Occasionally he glances at the road, his shoulders tense – as if he were expecting to see a group of men rumbling down the drive in their trucks.

Cal says goodbye to T-Dog and moves up beside Glenn. The younger boy tries to smile at her as she hauls herself into the empty chair at his side. It comes out more as a grimace, his discomfort apparent.

"You don't think we should kill him," Cal says plainly.

Glenn sputters, "no. It's not that."

"You're just having second thoughts?" She asks.

"I just – I mean, how did we get here?"

She stares out across the fields, towards a tent tucked away in the grass. "I don't know," she mutters. "Hell of a thing: the end of the world."

"Yeah," he agrees. "Just a lot different than delivering pizzas, you know?"

They sit quietly, Glenn ringing the barrel of the watch rifle. Cal ignores him, her eyes casting across the camp; the long and empty road; the fields. She watches as Dale retreats from Daryl's makeshift encampment. She hadn't even realized he'd been there, tucked carefully behind the tent.

"He's going around to everyone," Glenn explains at her confusion. "Rick gave him the day."

"To do what?"

"To see if anyone would agree with him."

She watches Dale. She takes in the slouch of his shoulders, the wide brim of his hat pulled low over his eyes. He carries another rifle over his shoulder, a testament to his long endeavour to protect the camp – and even still in their time of disagreement, he only looks to protect the camp from a different enemy than they were often accustomed to.

She subconsciously runs her hands along her pants, as if to wipe away the red that stains her palms.

"Don't be afraid," she says. "Forget what you have to lose, and fight like hell."

Glenn glances at her. "I uh -"

"My father always said that," she explains, still following Dale with her eyes. "Dale doesn't get that. He still thinks the world is black and white.

"He'll fight for what he believes in. He'll fight for goodness. He'll fight until he can't," she shakes her head. "I just hope he realizes his fight isn't for survival. It's for something that doesn't really exist anymore."

Glenn swallows heavily. "What's that?"

Cal shifts in the chair, her eyes moving towards the trees, and the faint curl of smoke in the distance. "Humanity – as it was. As Dale remembers it. The only hope we have is to survive with some semblance of goodness."

"And if we kill Randall?"

"Rick was right, Glenn. If we let him go, whats to say he won't hurt others? It's twisted and it's fucked up, but we can't do nothing."

They sit in silence, both of them mulling over the daunting truth that lay before them.

"Is it cowardice?" Glenn whispers. "If we let him go, are we cowards for not killing him? But if we kill him, are we cowards for doing it?"

Cal shrugs. "Or is it bravery?"

Glenn's eyes are red, his face pale. She can imagine tears running down his cheeks. "Maybe it's a bit of both," he suggests softly.

Glenn eventually leaves, politely excusing himself at Maggie's beckoning from the house. Cal takes up the discarded rifle, her eyes filtering across the field – the house, the long and empty road, the fields and Daryl's tent.

She isn't surprised when Dale finds her. She isn't surprised when he clambers up beside her and settles down on the other free chair. For a long moment they sit in silence.

She knows what he wants to say.

He tugs his hat low over his face, and rubs at the pink skin on the back of his neck. His eyes are dark; expression tight as he takes in the camp and the people slugging miserably through the summer heat.

Dale's voice quakes. "Are we worth a young man's life?"

It's more than basic math. It's more than the ruthless calculus of war. His question isn't simple – it's the hardest question she's ever been asked.

Cal wipes the sweat from her brow, and looks out across the fields. The top of the RV is warm – warmer even than beside the fire down below. She tugs at her damp scarf, grimacing as it peels away from her neck.

"If we do this," he says. "If we take his life – if we allow Rick to take his life -, we're giving something up of ourselves. We're letting a piece of who we are fall away. We're letting this new world, this harsh and cold and awful place claim us for itself."

He shakes his head, his eyes wide and his bewilderment clearly writ across his face. Cal doesn't meet his eyes; she looks out across the field and watches Daryl's tent squat idly in the tall grasses. "If we let go, we're admitting that there is no going back from here."

Cal bites at her thumb. "Maybe we can't go back," she offers.

Dale shakes his head, "I can't believe that. I can't believe that we would just give up so easily."

"Maybe they don't see it as giving up," she says. Dale looks at her in disbelief. "Maybe they're giving up that part of themselves so they can _survive_."

"But is it worth it?" He asks. "Is our survival important if our humanity dies?"

Cal blinks, "some people think so."

"I don't," Dale's resolve is tight in his voice. "I _can't. _What is mankind if we haven't our humanity? Are we animals? I wouldn't see my friends, my _family, _become nothing more than beasts looking only for their own we go down this path... "

Cal doesn't know what to say. She can't find words that will appease him. She is hardly a moral compass; she is hardly more than the very thing Dale murmurs about in abjection.

"I'm sorry," she says quietly.

Dale laughs softly; it is a bitter and twisted sound. "No," he says. "I am."

He leaves her there atop the RV, staring off into the distance past the camp and fields, to the dead labyrinth of Atlanta. She imagines a woman and child sitting beside her, and what might have been if she had let them in.

* * *

Later, Andrea offers to take over watch, but Cal declines without a glance. She can't look away from the dark clouds retreating beyond the horizon. The other woman sighs and moves away towards the house, "well, if you change your mind!"

Rick eventually clambers up beside her, and Cal offers him a small nod as he settles into a chair.

"We're gathering in a few hours. We're going to discuss Randall."

She nods, and when he doesn't leave she casts him an inquisitive glance.

Rick leans forward in his chair. "Dale told me you were thinking about leaving," he says.

Cal nearly scoffs. There was a part of her that was unsurprised that Dale had sought to warn Rick of her impending departure; there was a part of her that was surprised he'd do it after their previous discussion. A part of her couldn't blame him; he was disappointed and had sought clarification – that of which she had resolutely refused him.

"I am," she nods.

Rick nods. "When?"

"After Randall."

"You know you're welcome here," Rick is quiet as he studies her, and she sits still under his scrutiny. "If you change your mind..-"

"I'll keep that in mind." Cal bites at her fingernail. She looks down at the camp, and the people milling about. She doesn't want to tell him that his group is floundering; she doesn't want to tell him that people are going to die if it continues to shatter. It'd be useless anyways, she thinks to herself as she watches him scan the quiet of camp, he already knows. "I might try for Macon," she says instead, wincing at how hopeless she sounds.

"Your parents are there," Rick looks at her.

She nods.

"I hope you find them."

"Thanks," she says quietly, unsurprised at the sincerity in his voice.

""Your dad was ex-military?"

"Retired," she murmurs, remembering the ceremony and the honour and the tears of relief her mother had shed.

"Any siblings?" The question is hard. He wants to know, but he doesn't want to delve. She understands; it's something that they would ask one another in the old world – something they would share over coffee and laughter.

"No," she shrugs. It was hard for him to ask, but it isn't a hard one for her to answer. She watches as Rick swallows in relief.

"But you've lost people." It isn't a question.

Her breath catches in her throat at his boldness. She glances up and meets his calm, soft eye. Empathy pours off of him – that and understanding. She had heard of Rick's reunion with his wife and son, of his struggle in the new world to find understanding. He had told her himself on their first excursion together – one of the many topics of discussion that had arisen when it became apparent Cal was less than forthcoming about her background.

The empathy hurts – it doesn't feel or look like pity, but she can't really think of what else it might be. It hurts her. Everyone had lost someone; everyone would lose someone still. Who was she to deserve this moment?

She blinks, glancing away from those his intense gaze towards her hands. She regards them carefully; her right, and then her left. She's running her hands over her left hand like something is missing from it.

Rick notices, and he stills. He looks to his own hands. To his dirtied wedding band shining lowly in the light.

"I'm sorry for bringing it up."

"It happened long before all of this." He glances up to find her staring off towards the horizon. Her expression is impassive; her gaze, when it finally does turn to him, is blank.

Rick rises, running his palms along the front of his jeans. He offers her a nod; he offers her the silence of her watch. He climbs down from the RV. Cal watches him head off to the house, hand on his holster – ever the Sheriff.

* * *

The group had been told that the young man they recovered from town had been one of the few to chase Cal through the streets. They had been told what Daryl had learned. They had been told to steel themselves to the fact that Randall had to be dealt with.

Randall knew Hershel. He knew Maggie. He was party to unsavoury people, and had taken to their more illicit activities with vigour.

Cal hadn't told them that he had almost caught her. She hadn't told them that he had yelled in her ear, his excitement the only thing that had kept her moving and breathing and fighting.

When the group gathers again in the failing light of day, Rick recounts this information to them all. The quiet of the group is unnerving; they listen and wonder and mull over the boy tucked away in the back room.

Cal stands near the door, her eyes trained on Rick and Shane.

"If we do this, we need to be ready to live with the consequences."

Carol opts out. She lifts her hands and leaves – she doesn't want any part in it; she doesn't want to decide if he should live or die. Cal watches her go, remembering Glenn murmuring of bravery and cowardice.

"Some of us aren't ready to do that, Rick," Dale speaks up after Carol leaves.

Shane's eyes darken, "let me tell you somethin', Dale. If we let that asshole go, he might just lead his boys right back here. You think you can live with the consequences of that?"

The older man's face hardens. "If we kill this man – this _boy – _we are no better than they are."

"And if we do nothing?" Rick hisses. "What are we then?"

"Cowards," Shane replies.

Dale shakes his head, "is it cowardice to stand up for what you believe in? Is it cowardice to want a better life than what the world is demanding we _accept_?"

Rick's jaw tenses and he runs a hand over his face.

"Think of the example you're setting for Carl," Dale pleads one last time.

Rick turns away.

Andrea speaks up suddenly, voicing her decision to support Dale. The two of them turn to T-Dog and Glenn sitting uncomfortably on a loveseat.

"T-Dog," Dale's voice is imploring.

"It needs to happen, man," T-Dog mutters. "We aren't safe with him alive."

Dale turns to Glenn, his eyes wide.

"I'm sorry, Dale," he murmurs and looks away.

"This isn't justice," Dale mutters, moving away from the group. His disgust and disappointment clear across his face. "This is murder." He moves to leave, brushing past Cal with a misty eyes. He pauses behind her, his breath low as he murmurs to someone: "You're right. This group is broken."

The door breathes shut behind him. The room is silent.

"It'll happen right away," Rick murmurs.

One by one they trickle away. Cal turns to leave and nearly bumps into Daryl. They both take a step back – she notes the pink alighting his cheeks. "Sorry," he mumbles and steps out of her way.

"What did you say to Dale?" She asks, her voice a quiet hush as the room empties out.

Daryl blinks and then shrugs, "told him the truth. Groups broken."

She nods slowly, her eyes dropping to the breast pockets of his vest.

Daryl had said that finding Sophia had been important – he had said that he had tried to fix the group. She thinks of the barn; of the group that had stood as a firing line, and of the group that had stood apart. They were never together; never united. When Sophia had appeared they had splintered before her eyes; strangers breaking like glass.

"I don't care anymore," he says.

For a long moment they stand there in quiet – neither moves. It's only as her eyes drop lower that she notices the white bandages spread across his knuckles.

He notices the direction of her eyes and tucks his hand out of sight.

"I think you do," she murmurs. And then she's brushing past him, warm like the rolling breath of a thunderstorm, leaving him alone in the living room.

He stands in silence, wondering if she had been there at all.

* * *

Rick is staring at his hands. At the lines etched in the large oak table. At Hershel who waits patiently, and Shane who stands expectantly behind him. At Cal who stares out the kitchen window, and Daryl who stands near her.

A single shell sits beside his Magnum on the table; a gleaming sword amongst the shadows of their drudgery.

"Capital punishment used to be a hanging," Rick murmurs.

"Infection has set in," Hershel says. "He's weak."

"I'm thinking he'll manage to stand for a little while," Shane snaps.

Rick shakes his head and reaches out, grabbing both Magnum and shell from the table. He looks around the room as he loads the gun, his eyes tired as he observes the few who stand with him. His eyes finally land on Hershel. Rick pushes up from the chair and turns to regard the closed door down the hall.

He blinks. His jaw tightens. He sighs.

"Hershel?" The question need not be said aloud. The loose gun in his hand is enough.

Hershel shuts his eyes and nods.

Rick moves, Shane and Daryl close behind him. The others still; pausing as the three men drift away.

They enter the room to find Randall slouched in his pillows, grey skinned and sweating. Shane and Daryl help him drag the boy from the house, across the fields to the barn. Randall groans, slipping in and out of consciousness as his leg is jostled. They set him down against one of the cool barn walls.

"I don't want to die," Randall moans.

Rick stills, his jaw setting. The gun is heavy in his hand, and he looks down at it.

It should be heavy, he thinks. It should weigh more than the world.

He moves up beside the young man, the Magnum lifting to press into his forehead. "Any last words?" He murmurs.

Randall coughs, "I don't want to die," he repeats.

One moment – a breath. He remembers Cal's warning the other night: _don't hesitate._

He blinks.

"You don't need to do all the heavy lifting," a voice says.

Fingers curl around the barrel of his gun, and he realizes there is a tremor racing up his arm. The gun is heavy – so heavy that he nearly drops it. Daryl is looking at him, something quiet in his eyes that speaks more loudly than the huffing and puffing of Shane a few feet away.

Daryl draws a pistol from his hip.

He doesn't hesitate.

* * *

Cal is sliding from the house when it happens – a sharp crack igniting in the sky, and the sharp flash lighting up the dark belly of the barn. She pauses and waits, her breath tight in her chest.

Shane comes storming from the barn. Moments later, Rick and Daryl follow. Between themselves they heave Randall's body onto the twisted pile of dead bodies. They follow soon thereafter, murky silhouettes in the dusk.

She moves up alongside the camp, watching in quiet as Shane moves through the grasses. She stands in the shadow, listening to him mutter to himself. The tension in his shoulders is enough to make her take a step back.

"He almost didn't do it," he hisses, and Cal realizes with a jolt that Lori has bled from the shadows to his side. "He hesitated."

Cal blinks slowly at him, and then glances over his shoulder at Rick and Daryl moving towards the camp. She wasn't surprised; they had all but forced the idea of Randall's execution on him. "Who did it then?" Lori asks.

Shane runs a hand over his head, a short laugh on his tongue. "Daryl."

Cal glances sharply towards the barn, her breath catching in her throat.

"If he won't protect you and Carl-" Shane blinkssuddenly, a hand drifting to cradle his cheek where Lori had struck him. She is hissing at him, telling him to be quiet. Their argument drifts to vehement whispers. Carol peers out from the window of the RV, her eyes wide and wet. Dale sits forlornly atop the RV, pretending to ignore Shane's acquiescing murmurs of desperation.

Cal turns suddenly when a hand cradles her bicep. She glances back to meet Daryl's eyes, his lips thin. She blinks in surprise; he had slipped so easily into the shadows and found her.

He jerks his chin towards the open field, the silhouette of his tent squatting in the dark. She follows him a short distance from the RV before she stops, before she refuses to move any further into the shadowy night.

"You did it," she says.

Daryl hesitates, his shoulders tightening as he turns to regard her. "Yeah," he nods.

She nods, not sure what to say. For a long moment they stand there in quiet. She tucks her hands around her body; he chews thoughtfully at a piece of grass stalk. Her eyes drift to his hands, to the white bandages wrapped around his knuckles.

"Do you want to be alone?"

The way she says it makes him pause. There is more to it than the here and the now. There is more to it than him or her. There is more to it than his tent set off from the rest, away from the group he thinks is broken. There is more to it than him simply wanting to be alone with what he's just done.

He hesitates.

"I don't know," he says.

* * *

**Computer access has been difficult. I apologize. Updates will be available when I can make it to a power supply. Your reviews are appreciated and get my creative juices flowing!**

**Next Chapter will be Daryl heavy. Stay tuned! **

**How did you like the changes thus far? Cal's influence has made a ****_very obvious _****appearance already. **


	14. Chapter 14

"Do you want to be alone?"

"I don't know," he says.

The two of them stand there in the dark, the moon casting a silvered glow across the field stretching around them. In the distance she can hear the crack of the camp fire, and the muted voices of the rest of the group as they drift out of their hiding holes. The silence is a telling symptom of their decisions, their choices. It's a fine mix of regret and guilt; they mull over the gunshot still echoing in their minds.

They've just killed a man.

"Why'd you do it?" Cal asks.

Daryl stiffens, not quite sure what to say. He had seen Rick holding his gun to the boy's head; he had watched as a man wavered under the weight of the hand he had been dealt. Rick wasn't a man to suffer his own choices, but the choices of others. He didn't celebrate himself as a false king, but did what had to be done to ensure the survival of his group. In that moment, Daryl had watched the group's decision weigh on him. Rick had hesitated, splintering under the girth of his own kindness. He would have pulled the trigger in the end, his resolve nigh infallible, but eventually he would have shattered under the constant barrage to his morality. Rick hadn't asked for help, but Daryl had known he had needed it.

"Rick shouldn't have to do it alone," he rumbles softly.

Cal remembers Rick's quiet words, his confession of killing the two men in Patton's Bar, and his willingness to do it again if necessary. He was a good man – a strong man dealt a heavy hand. He would make the choices no one else would; he would try where no one else could.

"That's a kindness he deserves," she blinks up at him.

Daryl feels a chill curl down his spine at her words, almost as if he's pleased by her recongition. "He's good for this group, even if they can't always see that."

"But you do."

Daryl's lips thin, and he looks away. "Someone's gotta have his back."

Cal glances over her shoulder towards the RV, towards the voices whispering fervently in the shadows. Shane and Lori argue quietly, though their voices carry across the grassy field. Daryl follows her gaze, and for a moment they stand acknowledging an unsaid truth; Shane would not be the one to support Rick.

He never had been. He never would be.

"Shane is dangerous," Cal murmurs quietly. "I hardly know the man, and I can see that."

Daryl is quiet.

"You need to make sure nothing happens," she says, finally turning back to him – she jumps when she meets his eyes, narrowed in confusion.

"What would I care?"

"You care what happens to this group."

He scoffs and turns away.

"You care, Daryl. And you know Rick is the only one that will help them. He can't be alone."

He stiffens as he feels her move closer to him.

"I'm leaving," she finally admits.

"Youwant to be alone," it isn't a question.

When she doesn't reply right away, he almost scoffs.

"I don't know," she says.

He blinks, but he doesn't turn to look at her. "Why?"

"_Why?"_ She asks, incredulous.

He shrugs, still staring out across the field with her at his back. "Why would you leave?"

She is silent for a time, and eventually he turns to regard her. She stands sheepishly in front of him, staring at her hands, her lip tugged thoughtfully into her mouth.

He knows why he would leave. He knows what would drive him away – and had. But she was right; he saw in Rick what the others did not. He saw in Shane what Rick would not see. There was a stark difference between the two men, and without a doubt their world would crumble if the lesser of the two managed to usurp control.

While a part of him still wants to turn tail and flee, her words were a tether anchoring him.

"_You need to make sure nothing happens. He can't be alone." _

He hates it. He hates that he doesn't owe Rick anything, but something still keeps him there. He hates that he doesn't understand it at all – the only thing that made sense were her words, her _request. _

And for that, he turns his anger and frustration and confusion to _her. _

He's opening his mouth to yell at her, to explode and tell her she's a dumb bitch, when it happens. A soft concession in the night.

"I'm afraid," she whispers to him.

Words escape him. He stares down at her in confusion.

"This group isn't safe. Groups _aren't _safe. Since the beginning of this whole thing, all I've found or seen with others is death – people scrambling over one another to find more time."

"So you'd just leave?" Daryl asks.

"I don't feel safe here," she defends herself. There were more words she wanted to use, more things she wanted to say. She could see their goodness shattering, their very foundation crumbling, and where Rick would take it upon himself to scavenge what he could, she wanted to get away. To leave them tumbling into the dark, so that she was not dragged down with them.

She wasn't any better than the others – than the people who pushed and shoved and murdered just for more time.

"I'm afraid," she repeats.

Daryl's lips thin, his eyes narrow. He had found her there in the woods without a clue which way her feet were, and he had heard of how her previous travelling companion had left her for dead. That, coupled with the men from town, surely left her with a concept of the new world.

He thinks back on the dog that Dale had mentioned, the one that had lived behind a dumpster. Something had set a fear in the dog, something that a bit of kindness had remedied.

But who was Daryl to fix something broken, when he was so fucked up himself?

He looks down at his hands, bloodied through the gauze wrapped so carefully around his knuckles. He remembers her concern, her knitted brow. _You should get those looked at. _

He had punched Randall after she left the room. He had punched Randall to stop him from speaking about her. He had punched Randall for her, and for the women that the boy had hurt – had broken. While he had punched Randall, he had thought back on her muttered words of a man leaving her for dead in the middle of the road.

He blinks, flexing his hands within the wrapped bandages.

"When are you leaving?" He asks.

She looks back at him, her eyes wide. "I don't know."

He nods and looks back at his hand. Cal follows his gaze.

"You should get those looked at," she mumbles red faced. "You've bled through your bandages."

* * *

They are in the Greene's kitchen, the lights casting a dim glow across the table where they sit. The house is silent around them, the residences having only just settled in for the night.

Daryl sits awkwardly at the table, tugging at the bandages with a grimace. He had pointedly ignored her offers to help, setting upon the task himself with a defiant vigour.

"It's just been me this whole time," he had groused. "Just me."

Cal had left him to it, choosing to instead sit back in her chair and watch quietly as he struggled.

And struggles still.

"God damn, fucking thin-"

She almost laughs, but quiets herself by burying her mouth into her hand. Her shoulders still shake – enough so that he glances at her and scowls.

"It ain't fucking funny," he hisses.

Cal holds up a hand in apology, her eyes light with mirth. "Of course it's not," she says.

Her glowers at her before returning to the task at hand.

For a few moments longer she listens to him pick and bite and tug at the gauze, cussing lowly under his breath.

"For fuck sakes-"

Her hands coil around his, stilling the impatience there. He tries to pull away, but her fingers are strong by his pulse. She ignores him, his murmured confusion. She simply tucks herself in front of him and begins to peel the bloodied gauze from his hand, trying not to falter under his careful scrutiny. He is silent as she works, his dark eyes watchful. She fetches a fresh cloth from the pantry and splashes it lightly with peroxide.

For a moment she thinks he'll pull away.

"I've had worse," he grunts, scowling dutifully as she eyes him from beneath her lashes.

She blinks and then picks up his hand, carefully cradling his palm within her own. She apologizes as she touches the damp cloth to his raw skin, wincing as it sizzles.

He doesn't flinch.

Instead, he watches her. The shadows cast themselves across her face, lending her the truth of how tired she is. He can still see the lumps and bruises from her altercation only a week ago, though they hide carefully beneath a layer of dust and sweat. She seems exhausted, as they all are, but her fear is a constant – a thing she never lets go of.

For a while they say nothing. She cleans his hands with a slowness, her hands fumbling occasionally as if unsure of how he'll react. He almost says something, but the worried cast to her expression holds his tongue.

She folds his hands over in her own, searching his palm with wandering eyes. The callouses there, the scars and scrapes, lend her the truth of his nature. She dabs at a small cut near his wrist. He doesn't pull away.

When it is done, she wraps his hand in gauze. He pulls his hands back to his lap and scowls.

"Thanks," he mumbles.

She nods and collects the loose items of her craft, cradling them to her as she stands. She doesn't say another word, she leaves the room in silence, only the door breathing behind her bids her farewell.

Daryl stares down at his hands. It burns where the peroxide had touched his skin.

And where she had held his hand in her own.

* * *

The next morning is a bleak affair. The aftermath of Randall's death sees the group quiet as they go about breakfast, their eyes only occasionally straying to Rick, Shane or Daryl. Carl is the only one unaffected by the whole affair, as seen by his childish protests as his mother attempts to urge him to eat.

"Carl, eat your eggs."

"No."

"Carl..-"

"No."

"Carl," Rick finally interjects. "Listen to your mother."

Everyone misses the heated look Shane passes Lori.

As Carl settles into his breakfast, the group goes quiet once more. They fall into a bleak silence, only the clinking of cutlery against plastic plates any sign of life. Eventually Carol begins a dish tub, and one by one the group finishes and tucks their dirtied utensils away. They drift off thereafter, returning to duties long forgotten upon Cal and Randall's untimely arrival.

Cal is the last to tuck her plate into the bin, and she offers Carol a sheepish grimace at having made her wait. The older woman smiles tentatively, and her eyes dart behind Cal before returning. Her eyes are light, her lips quivering and tightening and trembling as she rolls words over her tongue.

"He shouldn't be alone," Carol murmurs, echoing the same thing Cal had only just said to Daryl.

Cal blinks uncertainly, glancing over her shoulder. Daryl is weaving through the field back to his tent. Cal turns back to Carol. She had seen the older woman pursue Daryl through the camp on several occasions – they had an apparent friendship, though Cal had suspected more than that.

Carol's words push that assumption firmly aside.

"No," Cal agrees. "He shouldn't."

"No one should be alone," Carol's voice is filled with enough intensity that Cal blanches, her eyebrows rising in wonder at the woman's pointed look. Carol had never come across as forceful, but rather a soft and meek person that had, surprisingly, survived at all. The woman's sudden strength and conviction was enough to make Cal blush.

"You think you're doing whats right in leaving," Carol murmurs, her eyes falling away as if she's embarrassed by her own backbone. "But you're not, and you'll end up hurting more than just yourself."

Carol's bravery deflates, and she offers Cal a tired smile.

"Just think about that."

"Okay," Cal blinks. She turns and walks away, feeling her conviction falter.

She moves towards the Greene's house, faltering only when she sees Hershel, Daryl, Rick and Shane tucked around a map on the porch.

"We need to start soon if we're going to be comfortable through the winter," Rick explains.

Shane's face is dark. "We can't be sure that Randall's people won't just show up-"

"So only send a handful of people at a time," Daryl growls.

"Your people are welcome to move into the house," Hershel finally offers to Rick. "But we don't have enough supplies for everyone."

Shane huffs and runs a hand over his bare head.

Rick's jaw is tight as he mulls over Hershel's words. He sets forward on his hands, staring down at the map. "Then we need to go out," he holds up a hand to silence Shane. "We _need _supplies."

"Remember what happened _last time?" _Shane hisses.

"Then we'll only send a _handful of people," _Rick says sharply. "This isn't up for discussion."

"No Rick, I think it is."

Daryl glances between the two men, and his eyes finally alight upon Cal moving slowly towards the porch. He blinks, expression light as she meets his gaze.

"I'll go," he says to Rick, ignoring Shane's dark scowl.

Rick's shoulders sag in a sudden relief. "You sure?"

"Yeah," Daryl nods.

"I'll go too," Cal offers, surprising both Rick and Shane at her sudden appearance. "I'd like to help before I go."

Rick considers her for a moment before he catches Daryl's eye. The other man nods.

"Alright," Rick says.

"No," Shane interjects. "Rick, you can't be serious man. Sending one of our best shot-"

"Who else should I send, Shane?" Rick's jaw is tight. "Dale? Carol? _Lori?"_

Shane's jaw snaps shut, his eyes suddenly vivid with colour. "And who are we going to lose if you don't? Dale? Carol? _Lori?" _Shane bites back. "How many more do we need to lose for you to see—"

"Enough," Hershel grimaces, rallying behind Rick.

Shane huffs, his eyes locked with Rick's. A long and tense moment passes. Everyone holds their breath. Finally Shane scoffs and moves off, stalking away towards the RV with an angry growl. The tension crumbles; the group lets out a collective breath.

Rick watches until Shane is out of sight, and then he turns to Cal and Daryl with a sigh. "You'll head out as soon as possible. I don't want you out in the dark.

"I'd say you hit the highway. Collect as much as you can from the cars before we start heading out any further," Rick says. "We don't know how far those men are, or how many there might be. We need to keep a low profile."

* * *

They run their hands in the dry dust of the road and rub their palms across their necks and through their hair. The sweat clinging to their skin mixes with it, casting a swirling pattern of mud beneath their jaws and around their collars.

"I knew you had a group," Cal explains to Daryl. Rick stands off to the side to see them off, listening intently. "From the first moment I saw you, I knew you had a _home._"

"How?" Rick asks, his brow furrowing in consternation.

She looks pointedly at Rick, at his freshly shaven jaw. "He was too clean."

Rick rubs at his chin, suddenly conscience. He remembers the men in Patton's Bar, and how easily they had assumed they had somewhere to live. It hadn't made sense at the time; it had caught them off guard and had probably confirmed to the men what they had wondered aloud.

"If they get close enough to the truck, they'll know," she says. "But if we're looking to bring stuff back we can't afford the room."

"Then we ain't gonna let them get close enough," Daryl grunts, rearranging one of his dirtier shirts around his shoulders. His crossbow is tucked into his arm.

Rick nods.

"Be careful," he says.

As Daryl moves to pass them by, Rick turns to Cal with shadowed eyes, the weight of Randall's death still an obvious burden. "Keep an eye on him," he murmurs, nodding in the direction of Daryl's retreating back. "It isn't easy."

"No," she agrees.

"He doesn't really have anyone."

"If he needs someone to talk to, I'll talk to him," she reassures him.

Rick nods. "Be careful," he repeats, the words resounding with a different meaning.

"We ain't got all day!" Daryl grunts from afar, and Cal gives Rick one last look – and a pained smile – before she hurriedly moves off after him.

The truck they take belonged to a man named Otis. Patricia is in the kitchen window when it starts up, and she disappears with a shocked look on her face and her hand held to her heart. Cal watches her fade from the kitchen window – almost as if the woman is an apparition.

Rick waves them off down the drive, his eyes dark as they rumble around the corner of trees.

For a long while they weave down the old country road. Neither says a word, for they are lost to the dark wood surrounding them, looming before them and behind them. Cal cannot find words, for her eyes search the trees for any semblance of man or walker. Daryl drives them onwards, his attention split between the road and forest.

"There," Cal murmurs, and Daryl glances in the rear view window to see a single walker come stumbling from the copse. It shambles listlessly behind them, its gait awkward.

They ignore it and drive on.

Eventually the wood bleeds away, and they find themselves on the edge of the highway. Before them stretches the vast empire of the old world; the concrete veins that had once pumped with so much life lay silent, the old and forgotten vehicles now dusty tombs.

Daryl edges carefully onto the road, and swings the truck about. It's nose faces back towards the road.

They dip from the truck, their breath tight in their chests as they land upon the sun baked concrete of the old world. Around them the highway is quiet.

Cal wanders towards the nose of the truck, her eyes pinched against the sun as she looks north and then south. Daryl slinks towards an old abandoned station wagon, his eyes taking in the small pile of food and running paint across the windshield.

"What is that?" Cal's voice is so quiet he almost doesn't hear her.

"Somethin' we left for Sophia," he grouses, dragging his hand across the paint, wiping it away, and pulling the few items into his arms. He dumps them into the bed of the truck and turns around to take in the rest of the vehicles. They had scoured them that first night on the highway, but there had been so many items they hadn't been looking for, or had found wanting.

"Someone should be on watch," she looks at his crossbow nestled in his arms, her own hand sitting idly on the hilt of her knife.

"You sure you don't want-"

"I'm sure," she says.

He nods and climbs atop the cab, glaring down the highway.

It is slow work. The first few cars offer little more than suitcases of wrinkled, musty clothes. Cal hauls a few bags to the back of the truck, picking and choosing the heavier garments that would be of more use through the colder months. It seems that most of the people who had long abandoned their cars hadn't the foresight to see the impending apocalypse – everything tucked in the trunks or back seats are little more than a few changes of clothes, or a few magazines. Cal grabs what newspapers she can, already anticipating the chill of winter deep in her bones, and the fire that they would surely need to chase it away.

By the time the summer heat begins to pulse around them, the back of the truck is half full. Cal is tugging at the bandana around her neck, grimacing at how it drags across her wet skin. From where she scrounges in the front seat of a mini-van, she can see Daryl facing away from her – the back of his shirt is dark with sweat.

Cal sighs, brushing her fingers over the blue air conditioning button on the console. She remembers the few moments of reprieve from the heat, when she and Merle would justify a moment of cool air licking their skin.

She almost laughs at herself for reminiscing so fondly of the man that had almost killed her, when Daryl's gruff voice cuts through the air laced with acid.

"What're you laughing about?"

She blinks, realizing she had indeed been shaking with laughter. "I was just thinking about the asshole that left me for dead," she says back.

Daryl turns away, looking off down the road. "What about him?"

Cal sobers up, remembering the moments with Merle that had made her feel alive – _human. _Subtle things came to mind: the fear she had felt when she had first found him near death on the side of the road; the sadness she had felt when he had discovered his brother was most likely dead; and the tension that propagated their final encounter.

They had needed one another, in one way or another. She had tended and cared for Merle, and Merle had given her camaraderie when she hadn't realized she had needed it.

"It was shit when he was there," she grumbles, digging into the back seat. "But it was better than being alone."

Daryl freezes, remembering.

* * *

**Fluff. And some other vague stuff. I always feel like I'm being too vague, but I like being vague and seeing what people draw from certain lines. Interpretation is one of my favorite things to study in literature - so I'd love to hear some of your interpretations of some of the things written in this chapter!**

**Also, a big thank you to the amazing folks that reviewed, favorite'd, followed, and alerted. I generally reply to my reviewers, but limited computer access has made it difficult. This time though, I will for sure get back to everyone!**


	15. Chapter 15

Merle hadn't been around much when he'd been growing up. He was always gone off on some binge, or crumpled in a gutter somewhere chucking up his own guts. The man wasn't having fun if he was sober. It was a cold and hard truth that Daryl realized at an early age that Merle adopted from their father.

He almost smirks at Cal's words, at her silent admission. It is painfully familiar – he recalls having said nearly the exact same thing only just a few weeks prior. _It was shit when he was there, but it was better than being alone._

The scars on his back were a testament to Merle's long absences, to a time when even his mother couldn't hide him in her arms – God rest her soul. Only Merle had been able to stop their father's relentless rages, and that had been entirely due to a violence all his own. While he had never laid a hand on Daryl, there had still been a pain, and there had still been a hurt left all the same.

Daryl had thought he had hated Merle. For a long while he had thought so – until Merle would leave. Merle always left. He would find an excuse – whether it was on account of their father or Daryl's being a _pussy _– and hightail it out of dodge. He always fled away to the city, to crawl back into the gutter or the crook of a whore's arm. He would leave Daryl behind, and in that he left him alone.

Entirely and utterly alone.

Daryl almost says something about Merle, but he stops himself. Cal is looking away down the road, her fingers plucking at the hem of her shirt. The silvered duct tape peaking out from beneath makes him look away sharply; she glances at him, her eyes dancing across the red peaking out from beneath his collar.

"Did _you _ever think about leaving?" She asks.

Daryl chews on the inside of his cheek. He had thought about leaving the moment he and Merle had joined up with the group back in Atlanta - that was until he had seen the Napalm raining down in the streets. It was only when the world truly turned to shit that he realized being alone just wasn't plausible – if he left, he may have very well never seen a living person again.

That desperation as a child, the loneliness due to Merle's absences, reared its head.

Anger had guided him once; a rash decision to find his brother and then leave. Only Rick had placated him enough to stay; only Rick's careful words had guided him down from up on high. He had distanced himself, but he had never really looked out across the dark fields of the dying world and thought he would be better off by himself.

Even after the CDC. Or the Barn. Sophia.

Or Cal and her careful words of being safe in her loneliness. It had been a temptation – but one smothered so readily by the memory of Merle's abandonment in his earlier years.

He never wanted to be truly alone again.

"Not really," he scowls.

She blinks at him, at his honesty. She can hear the subtle judgement in his voice.

"Some people are better off alone," she mumbles back.

Daryl shakes his head. "Yeah, like the dead," he snaps back.

For a long moment the two are silent as they consider one another.

Cal is rubs at the scarf wrapped around her neck, tugging at the damp fabric with a noncommittal shrug. "Come on," she says. "We have more to do."

And like that, Merle is discarded.

There is a deep quiet about them. A silence that sees them on into the afternoon. Cal and Daryl return to rifling through what cars they can and shoving what they can scavenge into the back of Otis' truck. It's hard work in the afternoon sun, and soon thereafter they're both panting into the day and wiping sweat from their brows.

After a switching out with Daryl to take watch, Cal notices his aloof and somewhat distracted focus. He seems far away, as if he's no longer tethered to the earth. Rick's quiet concern for Daryl's well being ripens in her mind, taking form as she notices his lacking attention. In the short time she had known Daryl she had quickly known him to be observant in an almost Sherlockian manner.

Cal watches him from atop Otis' truck; the way he slinks between the vehicles and peers in the dusted windows is almost uncaring.

"What is it?" She asks, wincing when he blinks to life from his stupor.

"Nothin'."

"Doesn't look like nothing," she says.

He grunts and manoeuvres behind a truck, effectively blocking her from view.

She calls out after him, turning away from the truck so she can better look on down the highway.

Daryl's silence is enough of an answer.

"Rick's worried about you," she suddenly says.

"He ain't gotta be," Daryl grouses back.

"You just killed a man."

"It had to be done."

"Daryl."

Daryl ignores her and stares off into the distance, his jaw tight as he regards the winding river of rusted metal and deteriorating rubber. The world is quiet around them – enough so that his own silence is a deafening testament of his preferred solitude. He moves further behind the shadow of the transport truck, winding his way into the labyrinth of rotting cars. He doesn't hear her footsteps, but he knows from her silence that she has climbed down from Otis' truck to follow him.

They move through the graveyard like two ghosts, weaving across the concrete in silence. He's quiet, and she's silent; their footsteps roll across the dusted road like whispers. The wind breathes across his sweaty back, and he stops. He knows she's there behind him, waiting for him to turn and say something.

Anything.

"Just leave me the hell alone," he snarls suddenly, turning to her.

She blinks up at him, her eyes wide as she takes in the violence he shrouds himself in. It's a blanket – a shield against the unknown. He doesn't know what to feel and so he turns to aggression.

"No," she says.

It's all she says.

For a long moment they stand staring at one another. Daryl glowers darkly; Cal stares up blandly. He bristles at her apparent nonchalance, as if he's not standing there like a rolling thunderstorm – as if he's nothing but a boy having a tantrum.

"I can wait," the words slip from her lips as if she knows her patience bothers him.

Daryl grunts and turns from her, refusing to look her in the eye and say that he doesn't care – that it doesn't touch him. He isn't weak, he wants to say. He isn't going to crumble and break and shatter under the fact that he took a man's life. He did it for a friend – for someone who he could see was beginning to crumble, who was beginning to tremble under the weight of his burden. He did it for the people Randall had hurt, and for Cal who had sat so stoically under Randall's scrutiny.

If he had to live with that burden, if he had to take it upon himself for others, he would.

"I did what I had to do," he says, his tone defensive.

"You did," she agrees quietly.

"And I'd do it again," he grouses.

"Why?"

The question catches him off guard. It's more a challenge than a query, posed more for himself than her own clarification.

"_Why?" _He repeats with narrowed eyes.

She nods, expression expectant. "You're not a murderer, Daryl."

"You don't know me."

"No, but I can tell the difference between you and Shane. You're not a murderer," she repeats.

Daryl glowers at her darkly.

"You care about the group. You care what happens to these people. You try to distance yourself because you're afraid of caring. Because caring means you have something to lose."

He snarls at her, moving closer, bullying her space with a sudden aggression that she steps back and stares up at him wildly. She remembers Merle. She remembers his hand on her skull, cracking her head across the pavement with crushing force.

"You. Don't. Know. Me," he repeats, rasping his words like sandpaper across her ears.

"No," she says quietly. "But I know someone like that."

She pushes past him and retreats back to the truck, leaving him standing there amongst a row of ghosts.

* * *

They arrive back at the farm with little fanfare. Everyone helps unload the truck, sorting the items for later division and distribution amongst the group. Rick holds and pats Cal and Daryl's shoulders, his eyes light with relief at their return and their support.

"Thank you," he mutters quietly, passing Daryl and Cal to run his hands across a pile of blankets, or tug appreciatively at a basket of clothes. He marvels at the small things; a full tube of toothpaste, or a bag of medicine. Always his eyes return to them, appreciative. "Thank you," he repeats.

* * *

There had been a time when sleep came softly in the night, but that had been a time of pink dresses and loose teeth – when dreams were of fairies and unicorns, and not hellish things crawling in the dark. A good sleep was a long forgotten ally; something she hadn't known in years.

And with the world the way it was, it wasn't surprising that she lay awake into the nights, sweating and gasping as nightmares became a reality.

She had been dreamt of lightning and thunder; of rolling hills that glowed with grey light; of brown blood crusting on her hands; of a cop wandering into the dusk, whistling something disjointed and haunting. She had dreamt of a man dying, and his best friend clutching fervently at her hands. Of a flag folded neatly, and a ring slipping from her finger.

She had awoken softly, and crawled from her tent with a sigh. T-Dog had welcomed her offer of reprieve, his eyes gracious as he relinquished both rifle and chair as he moved from the RV and his watch, to his tent in the distance. In the quiet of the dim night, she had sat in silence.

It isn't until the grey hours of the morning that he finds her there atop the RV. Rick moves up beside her, slouching into the empty seat beside her with a sigh. For a long moment the two sit in silence, marvelling at the familiarity of their meeting, until Rick clutches at his face and sighs loudly into his hands.

"You can take what you'd like," he says of the salvage from yesterday. Cal blinks in surprise. "It's the least we can do."

"Rick-"

"No," he says, holding up a hand.

She goes quiet. After a moment she nods.

"Thank you."

He nods in reply. "When were you thinking of leaving?"

"As soon as possible."

"I was thinking about heading out tomorrow, there's a police station about thirty minutes away. You're welcome to come. We could drop you off along the way if you'd like."

She's quiet for a moment, lips thin and eyes wide. Rick catches the expression, the hint of doubt that flashes across her face – as if she's not quite certain she wants to leave. He almost hopes she'll refuse, but she nods with a muted eagerness. "Thank you," she says.

For a long moment the two are quiet, Rick wanting to ask her if she's certain of her decision to leave, and Cal wanting him to try and convince her otherwise. She recalls Carol and Daryl's quiet words, and Dale's blunt opinion. They were words that would have convinced her had she met them in another life, or another time. - if doubt didn't gnaw so ferociously at her conscience. If Merle's betrayal wasn't so fresh.

"Daryl moved back," Rick shatters the quiet.

She blinks, "pardon?"

He nods down to the camp, to the circle of tents. It is only then that she realizes the wispy smoke from the treeline is gone, and Daryl's tent now squats unceremoniously off only a short distance from the rest.

She doesn't say anything, instead she turns and looks out across the grassy fields towards the dark treeline, to the place he had once camped – alone.

* * *

When the sun crests the horizon, Glenn is the first to wake. He relieves Cal from watch, allowing her to go about her morning routine. Slowly, the rest of the group awakens, and day begins in a flourish of activity.

It becomes apparent early on that spirits have lifted. Despite the impromptu funeral only a few days previous, people exchange smiles and tentative words of happiness. Lori offers a soft smile over the camp fire, exclaiming over Beth's revival under the careful scrutiny of her father; T-Dog and Dale chuckle softly over a shared joke; Glenn and Maggie share a wistful morning of soft words atop the RV; and even Carol smiles, though it is hard pressed to touch her eyes. Only Daryl seems sour, though she supposes it has more to do with her words the day before – he catches her eye for only a moment before he hurriedly turns away.

After scooping the last of her eggs into her mouth, Cal discards her dirty plate into the dishwater. She hesitates when she meets Carol's eyes, wincing as the woman's smile falls away to a quiet stare. She beelines for the house, apologizing as she brushes past Carol with a wince.

She feels like a coward.

It isn't until she's slipped in through the kitchen door that she breathes, and even then she freezes when she realizes she's stumbled in on an argument between Andrea and Lori. The two women crowd the kitchen, their eyes livid. They don't exchange words, but the intensity of their glares is enough to make Cal hesitate.

It is only when Lori catches sight of her over Andrea's shoulder that the two women stop. Smiles are quickly plastered across their faces, though the tension lining their shoulders tells a different story.

"Rick said I could-"

"Oh!" Lori says, ushering her into the sitting room and to a pile of arranged clothing and piles of other goods. "He said you'd stop by."

"You're leaving?" Andrea asks, and Cal blinks at the woman's tone – wonder, appraisal, curiousity.

"Yeah," Cal nods, turning to pull a shirt and a pair of pants into her arms. She holds each against her body before shoving them under her arm. "

"Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"No more sure than it's a good idea to stay."

This makes Andrea pause, her eyes light with understanding. "I get that," she says, sincerity in her words. She doesn't embellish on her own desire to leave, but watches Cal wistfully as the other woman picks through a pile of jackets for the coming fall.

Lori quickly excuses herself, and after a few moments Andrea joins Cal, rifling through several small piles and relieving them of a few items. "Here," Andrea passes her a handful of toiletries. "Things I know I wouldn't want to go without."

"Thanks," Cal offers her a tentative smile before shoving them under her arm. She pushes her hand through a plastic bag, plucking out several wet wipes.

"Any tips?" Andrea asks, expression open and curious. Cal blinks at her as the woman settles down on one of the empty chairs, leaning forward with earnest.

"For what?"

"Surviving – out there."

Cal's expression quiets, going stoic and chilled. Her lips pale as they press against one another. She shrugs lightly, looking away from Andrea – open and curious and nothing like how she imagined their first real conversation would go; Andrea had always come across as an angry, tumultuous woman.

"Don't be afraid."

Andrea looks away and scoffs lightly.

Cal shrugs and shoves her procured wet wipes into her back pocket. "I'm not kidding," she says.

"Sounds like something off a fortune cookie," Andrea says quite plainly.

Cal looks away from Andrea, her lips thin as she pushes away the memory of golden light, and of an officer ambling slowly towards the city, whistling a tune of sadness and laughter. He had owned his death in that; he hadn't been afraid as he turned to meet his fate.

"Yeah, it kind of does," she breathes.

The two women stand and turn to leave the living room, pausing only long enough to excuse themselves to Lori as she heads up the stairs with a tray in hand. "Lunch for Beth," she explains with a smile, though her attention is directed to Cal and not the scowling Andrea at her side.

They exit the house and make their way towards camp. Andrea helps Cal carry a few items to her tent, whereupon arriving she stands in the door and examines the other woman's sparse belongings.

"Why the sock?" She asks outright, watching as Cal unceremoniously shoves a sock into an open Tylenol container.

"When the only thing between you and certain death is how quiet you can be, a few rattling pills can tip the scale," Cal explains, closing the capsules lid and tossing it down. The bottle hits the ground with hardly a pop, and then rolls quietly to Andrea's feet. "I learned that the hard way."

"What happened?"

Cal shrugs, "I was stupid, and someone else paid the price."

Andrea's face goes white, and she blinks in uncertainty. "I'm sorry."

Cal smiles ruefully. "Don't be. He was the one that told me: _Don't be afraid._ I owe him everything."

Andrea doesn't say anything, but she looks out the door of the tent to the RV where Dale sits looking out across the fields.

* * *

The subtle joy of the day before is shattered. Cal's departure is met with a solemnity – everyone is quiet as she collapses her tent, with the exception of Dale who tells her to keep it.

"I'll have no use for it," she explains. "Not for how I travel."

He accepts it back with a wet eye and quiet nod.

The rest approach her individually, moving like ghosts from their breakfast or morning duties. Glenn offers her nothing more than a nod, a pinch of the lips and an awkward shuffle of his sneakers. Maggie presents her another shirt – long sleeved and duct taped. Lori and Carl murmur quiet goodbyes and goodluck. Hershel thanks her for being there for his daughters when he could not.

Andrea approaches with a tentative smile, their brief discussion the previous day lending her courage. "I hope we meet again," she says. "Though hopefully through better circumstances."

Cal laughs lightly, "hopefully."

T-Dog is there, wrapping her in his arms and hugging her tightly. She gasps loudly, not remembering the last time she had received a hug. She returns it, the feeling foreign and unusual. "If I see a storm, I know you'll be watching it, ya crazy."

She gives him a smug expression which he laughs at.

Carol walks up to her as T-Dog moves away, clutching her hand softly in her own. "Thank you," and that is all she says, though Cal can see the conflict in her eyes. She wants to say more; she wants to dissuade her from leaving.

But she doesn't.

The last person to approach is Daryl, though he moves over stiffly and with little preamble. He stands quietly in front of her, expression tight as she looks up at him. "Bye," he mutters quietly, and when it becomes apparent that he'll say no more, Cal turns to walk away.

"It might be shit," he says. "But it's better than being alone."

It's all he has to say to make her hurry away – the last plea for her to stay, and it coils around her more tightly than anything the others could have said.

* * *

Rick and Shane stand beside the green SUV, staring down at the map sprawled across it's nose. Cal, Hershel and Daryl stand beside them, their eyes trained on the small red 'X'.

"We need the guns," Rick says quite plainly, ignoring Shane's tense jaw.

"Better we get 'em than them assholes," Daryl grouses.

Rick nods. "I don't want to have them show up, and us not be prepared."

"I'll go," Daryl volunteers with a nod, but Rick shakes his head.

"Shane and I are going. I need you here."

"And I'm going to," Cal interjects. "I'll help you grab what you need, load up and then I'm gone."

Rick nods.

"We both shouldn't be going, man," Shane hisses, eyes dark and stormy.

"I need you on this," Rick replies. There is something about his tone that makes Cal pause – makes her narrow her eyes and wonder what Rick is up to. She knows his trust in Shane had been waning, but the clear suspicion in his eyes was enough to make her wonder just how much it had fallen away.

The two eye each other for a solid minute before Shane relents, bowing his head in concession.

"Sure, man."

As the group dissolves to prepare for their departure, Cal turns to toss her bag in the back of the SUV. She starts when she realizes Daryl is standing there, his eyes narrowed.

"Watch him," are the only two words he says before he slips away towards camp.

He doesn't need to clarify – she knows exactly who she needs to watch.

* * *

The drive is as somber as the day. Rick manoeuvres the SUV off the farm road and onto the highway, taking it a few miles south before they turn off on a service road. The rotted concrete makes the vehicle groan.

For a long time no one says a word. Rick looks ahead, while Cal sits in the back seat and watches Shane; the tension along his shoulders, the tightness of his jaw. He stares darkly out the window and she wonders if he's thinking of anything pleasant at all.

He has the same look on his face as Merle – something not quite right, something not quite there.

"There," Shane says, nodding to a walker ambling across a wide field. It's awkward gait is unrelenting – it stumps in a single direction, uncaring of the vehicle drifting by behind it.

"Wonder why it isn't stopping," she murmurs.

Shane scoffs, "probably got its nose on a good meal."

She shrugs and watches the walker until it disappears behind the crest of a hill.

They drive on for a while longer, until the flat farmlands give way to trees, and the service road spits them out on paved road littered with cracks. In the distance lingers a fenced off building, a series of school buses parked in the parking lot are the only ghosts in sight.

"I take it that's our police depot?" Shane asks.

Rick nods and steers towards the gate. The car comes to a stop, and for a long moment they sit in silence. Rick clutches the steering wheel tightly in one hand, while the other creeps down to clutch at the knife tucked into his belt. Shane's own hand grasps at his pistol, his eyes wide.

They slip from the car, moving onto the concrete with careful steps. Shane draws his pistol, but Rick shakes his head. "We need to be quiet," he warns. The other man blinks, his jaw tightening as if he wants to refuse – but then Cal is slipping past him, her own knife in hand.

They slip up to the fence, looking out across the parking lot. The school buses are few, but large enough that they block a direct line of sight to the building squatting behind them.

Cal blinks and shields her eyes against the sun, marvelling at how contrasting heaven and hell had become. The dusty grime that covers every surface is apocalyptic, while the blue sky overhead spoke of any other summers day.

Rick suddenly rattles the fence.

Cal and Shane jump back, hissing and spitting in surprise. A short moment after, a moan resounds from behind one of the hulking school buses, and a few walkers come stumbling out from behind them.

"We need to be quiet. Conserve ammo – save it for the _real _threats," Rick explains, digging the tip of his knife into the pad of his thumb and dragging the blossoming ribbon of blood across the chain link fence. Shane watches in quiet, brows drawn together in thought. "We can finish them off with a knife. Quick. Simple. Quiet -" he glances at Cal when he says this, his eyes taking in the hunting knife she clutches so reverently. "I saw what Cal could do, and we _need _to do that."

She almost blushes.

Almost.

The walkers throw themselves against the fence, rotted lips finding the thin trail of blood. They suck and tongue at the teasing meal, pale eyes wild with hunger.

Shane watches as Rick steps forward, his knife slipping into the eye of one. When he steps back, the walker slips down – dead as dead can be.

Shane takes the other one quickly, his eyes alighting with excitement.

They slip in through the gate, pushing it aside enough for the SUV to squeak past.

"They don't have bites," Shane suddenly calls out from where he squats beside the bodies, causing both Rick and Cal to freeze and turn towards him. Cal leaves the gate ajar, and instead moves towards him. Rick steps from the vehicle and jogs over.

"Maybe somewhere you didn't check?"

Shane gives her a bland look.

"You never know," she shrugs.

"Scratches?" Rick suggests hurriedly, pointing at a long line along one of the men's forearms.

Shane shrugs it off, accepting the explanation. As he moves off towards one of the buses, Cal hangs back, eyeing Rick hard.

They drift through the parking lot, eyes wide and at the ready. Their hands ache with how tightly they clutch at their knives, fingers going cold from their white knuckle grip.

Cal breaks off from the other two, drifting into a school bus. She hesitates at the front, her fingers coiling around the lever to close the door. It whispers shut behind her, and she reaches up to tap the tip of her knife against the ceiling. The _tap-tap-tapping _is enough to make her wince and hold her breath.

There isn't a sound in reply.

She ignores the soft echo of Shane and Rick's voices as she moves down the row of seats. She finds nothing in the first bus, and so she exits and climbs into another bus. The soft echo of their voices has turned more heated by the time she exits the second bus, Lori and Carl the only words she can decipher.

She remembers Shane's and Lori's hushed argument, their words tangling together into some semblance of an affair. Cal hadn't known either of them well, but in that brief moment when she had overheard them after Randall's execution, it had become apparent that Shane considered Rick incompetent when it came to protecting his family.

"Shit," she says.

And it is only then that she realizes she can no longer hear them at all.

Silence encompasses the parking lot.

Cal hesitates, her breath catching as she waits for something – anything.

The sharp sound of shattering glass is one of the few things she hears, and the sudden crackling moans of walkers.

* * *

**A little bit more of a look into Daryl's mind, his thoughts on Merle. I really do enjoy writing the two of them.  
And I'm not going to say anything about the situation Rick, Shane and Cal have gotten into - but it looks a bit sticky, eh? Enjoy.**

**I just wanted to thank everyone supporting this story! It means a lot. I do reply to reviews, but for those of you who favorite, alert or review via Guest, again... Thank you.  
Please review!**


	16. Chapter 16

His regret is what keeps him going – a defiance born of his own idiocy. They had warned him that the pleasures of their world were not past the high walls, but he had been so far from caring. As long as he was away – far, far away.

Of course, he had never anticipated that it would be like _this. _He had never thought that the world was so far gone. It surprised him, amazed him, that the Governor and his people had so carefully shucked them of their ability to survive. He had taken from them the very thing they needed most in this new world.

This new, terrible world.

And Brandon was now learning why he should have stayed in the castle walls. The bite on his arm pulsed. Though it ached unbearably, it was not what drove him on into the night.

It was the horde of walkers pulsing behind him – a vast and endless ocean of undead.

* * *

It is by some bizarre luck that she has a clear shot to the SUV. It is by some twist of fate that she manages to scramble from the school bus, gallop across the parking lot and dive into the car unseen. She sinks low in the driver's seat, eyes wild as she stares out across the concrete towards the building, to the wave of walkers spilling out from the dark mouth of a shattered window. They pour across the lot in a mad search for something – or someone.

She watches in horror as Shane scrambles across the lot, haggard and limping as he throws himself into the very same school bus she had been in only moments before. The rushing herd of walkers that lope behind him cackle and moan, hands clawing desperately at the door of the bus.

It's only then that she realizes he can't keep it closed.

"Shit," Cal hisses, her fingers tight around her knife. She peers over the dashboard, watching as Shane's strength begins to wane with every passing moment. The horde is relentless, throwing both their hands and themselves against the small door.

She looks away from the bus, eyes wild as she searches for Rick. What would it mean for the group, she wonders, if Rick was lost to a sea of walkers and Shane was swallowed whole? She can't even blink as she scans the parking lot – and then she hears it, the sharp crack of gunfire.

One.

Two.

Three.

And then he's there, creeping out from behind a cop cruiser tucked near the window, his eyes wide as he takes in the horde pressing in on the bus, and the desperate screams of Shane – angry and scared.

Cal hisses, reaching down to the ignition – blanching when she realizes the keys are gone and Rick most likely has them. She goes still as he begins running to the car.

"Come on!" She hisses, nearly shrieking in despair when a few walkers break off from the bus and begin loping behind Rick. She opens the door hurriedly, pointing at the passenger seat to save time. "Other side!" She yells, and Rick rears around the nose of the SUV and dives for the door. It slams shut behind him and he fishes out the keys from his pocket.

"Shit," he repeats over and over, voicing her own sentiment.

Cal jams the keys into the ignition, the SUV purring to life. The walkers in pursuit continue forward, and at the sight of the running lights blinking on, a few others break away from the bus.

"We're going around," she hisses, driving away from the bus around to the back of the building. Just as they turn the corner they see Shane in the window, looking out after them with wide, fearful eyes.

"He thinks we're leaving him," Rick says so plainly that Cal feels a lump form in her throat.

Cal glances at him – and then does a double take. "What the _fuck _happened to your face?" She snarls, eyeing the bruises and battered skin of his cheeks and jaw.

Rick blanches, surprised by her sudden vehemence. He doesn't have time to respond, as she's suddenly pushing at him to open the window.

"Nevermin, just shoot," she hisses, twisting the car around the final corner of the building. Just as they come around the corner the front door of the bus caves in, walkers spilling into the bus' belly. A flash of shadow is the only sign of Shane's desperate dash to freedom.

The sharp crack, crack, crack of Rick's gun echoes wildly around them.

Cal feels her heart explode in her chest.

_Don't be afraid. _

A breath. A single breath.

Shane is leaping in through an open window – they don't even stop.

The walkers around the bus' side, engulfing the rear of the SUV. She can feel the pull of them, as they drag their hands across the exterior, as they throw their bodies down and under the tires. One or two of them stumble in front of the SUV, but she swerves around them or clips their legs. They sprawl behind her, struggling to stand – until the rearing herd gallops atop them, crushing them beneath their heels.

The SUV tilts and sways as it twists out of the parking lot, squealing lightly as she rams down on the gas and accelerates away. She glances back once or twice, her heart plummeting at the rearing wave of walkers that amble and lope unsteadily behind.

They are quiet. Only the unsteady rasps of the two men in the car break the silence. Cal finds her own breath coming in ragged pants, her adrenaline pulsing like fire through her veins. She can feel the sweat trickling down her back, stinging her wounded side. She can feel the telltale wet of blood on her skin - she must have opened her cut during her mad dash to the car.

"Shit," she finally says, voicing concern over her wound. "Shit," she repeats, finally realizing just how closely they had come to being a meal. The last time she had come so close to being walker-food was in the town, after her unfortunate run in with Merle. "Shit. Fuck. Shit."

Rick winces at her words.

Shane just scoffs, "you can say that again."

"What was that?" Cal hisses, glancing at Rick and then in the rear view mirror at Shane.

Shane shrugs, and Rick looks out the window, his thumb tracing his jaw. "Just ran into some trouble," Rick supplies, and Cal shakes her head in frustration.

She doesn't know what to say, she doesn't even know if there really is anything _to _say. Rick had been so adamant with Shane about being quiet, and then the next moment the quiet afternoon had lit up with gunshots and shattering glass.

"I thought you guys left me behind for sure," Shane admits, the defeat in his voice enough to reel Cal back from her anger.

And despite her wariness of Shane, she understands. She understands what it's like to be beaten and bloodied, and abandoned. She can still distinctly remember the world tilting, and how difficult it had been to simply sit up. She can still recall how she had been content to lay there and die – until she heard them moaning and crackling as they spilled out of their broken homes.

"Sorry," Cal murmurs, keeping her eyes firmly ahead so as not to show Shane her own fear, her own distress at having once experienced something so familiar.

He had felt it for a moment back in the bus, but in truth that was all someone truly needed to feel. A moment of abandonment was still too much.

"I'm just glad you came back," he says.

"Still, I'm sorry," she repeats.

It doesn't escape her notice that Rick says nothing at all.

* * *

T-Dog stares up at the new platform on the windmill – their new watch tower.

"Come winter, that RV is going to have to be in the barn," Dale had said, and so it had become T-Dog and Glenn's job to lay down a few boards and make sure they were stable. The platform itself wasn't anything special, but it sat higher than the top of the RV, and if worked the correct way, would provide better shelter from the elements than the motorhome ever could.

"I like it," Glenn proclaims, grinning from ear to ear. He crawls up the side of the tower, still grinning like a fool as he slings himself down on the platform. "It's like paradise."

T-Dog scoffs from below. "You have a hard-on for a bunch of wood, huh?"

Glenn waves his hand in the air dramatically, "leave me to my joy."

T-Dog chuckles and crawls up beside him. "No more cooking on that metal roof."

"No more awkward listening in on awkward conversations in the RV."

"Or around camp."

"Or around camp," Glenn agrees.

"It's like the tree house I never had," T-Dog laughs.

Glenn blinks at him, "man, you never had a tree house?"

T-Dog shrugs, "nah, man."

"Huh," Glenn pauses. "Come to think of it, I don't think I did either."

"Time and place for everythin'."

"Who would have thought that time and place would be the apocalypse?"

They sit in quiet for a bit longer, marvelling over the view the new watch tower lends. It isn't long before Dale moves towards them, staring up with appreciation at the platform they've thrown together in just the morning.

"Looks good," he comments, climbing up the tower's side to closer inspect the workmanship.

T-Dog grins and flips the hammer lazily in his hand.

And then Dale comments idly on the redundancy of some of T-Dog's nails, and the two begin to bicker uselessly.

"I did not hear you just say that," T-Dog exclaims, rolling onto his belly to examine a particular board that Dale is pointing at.

"Look at this," Dale chides under his breath. "It looks like a five year old -"

And off they go.

Glenn sighs into his hands and sits up, looking out across the field. In the distance he can make out Hershel ambling slowly about the chicken coop with Patricia; Lori and Carl are sitting forehead to forehead under a group of trees working on homework; Carol sits in the shade, elbow deep in sudsy water and wet clothes; Daryl stalks off into the trees with his crossbow; and finally Maggie working her horse in a sandy ring.

He wets his lips and watches her, remembering their brief escapade in the pharmacy in town-

"Are they back already?" Dale's voice shocks him from his revery, and he starts into awareness.

Sure enough, the green SUV that Shane, Rick and Cal had taken out that morning is flying down the drive, a cloud of dust kicking up behind it.

"They shouldn't be," T-Dog says, and the three of them hesitate with wide eyes before they shoot down the side of the tower, and dart across the grassy field to camp. They hardly make it to the drive by the time the SUV comes skidding to a halt. Everyone rushes out, wide eyed and panicked.

Rick and Shane step out of the car, and finally, Cal.

"What happened?" Lori asks, eyes wide.

"Walkers," Rick says, holding up his hand to stop everyone's questions and desperate looks. "We were overwhelmed."

Cal scowls beside them, her jaw tense.

Shane is quiet.

"A walker did that?" Lori asks, her eyes on both Shane and Rick's respective bruises. Both men rub at their necks, and Shane looks away.

"Yeah," Rick confirms. "Place was overrun – we were lucky we got out."

One by one more people turn to greet them, wincing as they hear the news of the overrun police depot. Slowly the group dissolves, moving back to the camp or the house. Cal follows behind, watching the obvious tension between Shane and Rick.

"You're back," Dale breathes from beside her, and Cal starts.

"For a while anyways," she says, tugging at her scarf. She slings the pack off her back and settles into a chair, immediately fishing out a bottle of water from her bag and gulping down the contents. Her legs still feel shaky from their prompt departure; her heart still thrums dramatically in her chest.

Dale nods and casts a glance over his shoulder, watching as Lori and Hershel usher Shane and Rick back to the house.

"What happened?" He asks suddenly, causing Cal to glower into her bottle.

"I don't know," she says. The look Dale gives her makes her sigh in exasperation. "One moment I was rifling through a bus, and the next I hear them arguing-"

"Arguing?"

"-about Lori and Carl."

Dale inhales sharply, his eyes narrowing.

"What is it?"

"Lori's pregnant," Dale explains.

Cal's breath catches in her throat, though she isn't sure if that's due to the idea of Lori being pregnant, or the idea of a baby making its way into the world. What had she said to Dale only days before? That the world wasn't black or white or grey, but the rusted brown of dried blood. What sort of world would that be for an infant?

"Shane doesn't think Rick can protect them."

Dale nods, watching as Shane paces anxiously on the porch of the house alone.

"He's dangerous," he says. "And he needs to be dealt with."

* * *

Daryl is angry. Or he was. He couldn't help but think that their soft discussions would have meant something, that she would have stayed. At first he had supposed it wouldn't matter, that she would drift through and he wouldn't care, but when she had finally left with Shane and Rick, he had watched after the retreating dust cloud and realized it did matter.

He did care.

It had taken only a few short moments for him to stalk off, grumbling and rabid. Carol had retreated quickly upon seeing his expression, and Lori had ducked away with Carl. Only Dale had met his eye; only Dale had spoken a word to him from up on his RV.

"Thunder storm is rolling in," he'd said, and Daryl had glared up at the blue sky – not a cloud in sight.

"Whatever, old man," he'd groused, rumbling away with a sharp bark as Glenn poked his head out from his tent.

"What's up with him?" Glenn had asked.

"He's just missing a puzzle piece," Dale had supplied.

Their idle chatter had made him angrier. What did they know?

He'd spent the entire morning and half of the afternoon in the woods, tracking paths both familiar and foreign. At one point he found himself back at the place he had first drawn on Cal, the dead leaves and underbrush already dusting over their foot prints.

He settled there against a tree, pulling out the arrow she had found and given him. Despite his initial misgivings, the arrow fit perfectly and flew true; something he wouldn't have thought out of something scrounged from the dirt of the dead world.

For a long while he had sat there, thinking of Merle and the uncertainty of his survival, and of Cal and the certainty of hers. A part of him mused what the two of them would have thought of one another, though it was a brief idea that quickly fell away – they were too different, too opposite. They juxtaposed one another so completely that could already taste the fallout.

Merle would have tried to eat Cal up, there was no doubt about that.

Where she was silence, he was the cacophony of abuse. Where she was the stillness before a storm, Merle was the roaring thunder in the night.

Eventually Daryl returns to the farm, a string of dead squirrels hanging from his shoulder. He moves through the grassy field, mindful of each step. The green SUV is tucked up beside the house, and he watches as Shane stalks off from the house towards his tent. In the distance Rick walks with Lori and Carl.

"Dinner?" Dale speaks plainly as Daryl moves up to the fire.

"Yeah," Daryl admits, holding out the string of rodents with a nod. Dale and Carol move forward eagerly.

"They'll make a good stew," Dale says, his tone cheerful despite Daryl's sour expression.

Daryl says nothing.

"Can you get a pot from the RV?" Dale asks, eyes light with mischief. "I'm sure Carol and I can work up something really nice."

"Yeah whatever," he grouses, moving into the RV.

It's then that he sees her.

She's crouched in the middle of the floor, tugging at the straps of her sleeping bag with one hand. When the door swings against the side of the RV, she lets out a soft sigh and glances up in exasperation – and then she meets his eye and they both hesitate.

For a long moment they are still, their breath tight in their chest.

"You're back," he says quite plainly.

"We ran into some trouble," she breathes.

He blinks. He searches for something to say – anything.

"You hurt?"

She shakes her head.

And he feels the anger begin to melt away.

* * *

Sleep doesn't come to her, and it is long in the night that she lays awake, staring blankly at the faux-wood walls of the RV. Around her she can hear the RV settle; Carol's soft breaths from the back, and Dale's loud snores from the couch. He had insisted on taking the floor, but Cal had excused herself early, settling quickly in the tight aisle between the kitchen and bathroom.

"Well that isn't fair at all," he had said, but Cal had simply smiled in defiance.

She blinks, rubbing at her eyes and willing a yawn from her mouth. She wants to sleep, to rest easy, but she knows the moment she closes her eyes she'll be plagued with senseless dreamscapes and nightmares. The anticipation alone makes her toss and turn, until finally she rolls from her sleeping bag and crawls from the belly of the RV.

Outside the night is quiet. The pregnant moon casts an eery light, one that is punctuated by the backdrop of the cloudless sky stretching on into immutable darkness. For a long moment she stands in the silence of camp, looking at the silhouettes of tents squatting in the night, and the house watching on from afar.

She holds in a breath, listening.

"Cal?"

She glances up, startled. Daryl looks down at her from atop the RV, brow drawn furtively over his eyes; it is a dark expression embellished by the deep shadows of the night.

"Hey," she murmurs, tugging at her long sleeved shirt self consciously.

Daryl gives her a funny look.

"I uh, couldn't sleep," she says.

"Hm," he looks away.

She isn't cowed by his apparent coldness -having come to the conclusion that Daryl himself didn't always know what he was thinking - and instead crawls up beside him, settling into an abandoned lawn chair off to the side. At length, they sit on into a silence as the night stretches before them, dark and deep and endless. Neither looks at one another, but instead sweep their eyes in different directions, taking in the night that rolls on and on.

It isn't long until he speaks, and she isn't surprised by his question.

"When do you leave?"

A part of her winces at his wording, but another part – a part, she thinks, similar to him – recognizes it as only a truth. There isn't hope in his voice, but a grim understanding. She has no doubt that he doesn't want her to leave, but she knows he won't ask her to stay.

He doesn't want to care.

"I don't know," she says, regretting the words as soon as they pass her lips.

Daryl's expression darkens further, and he turns away, looking back to the hills rolling on into darkness.

She inwardly curses herself; despite his pretence of apathy, Daryl did care.

He cared about the group – he had always cared about the group -, and for some reason he cared about her too. She would never suppose to ask him why or how, but she had seen the concern in his eyes when she left with Rick and Shane. His warning about Shane had been simple enough, but the look he had given her spoke of a friendship – though a tentative one, she knew. From Daryl, that was all she could really ask for.

She sets back into the lawn chair and wraps her arms around herself.

"I thought we were going to leave Shane behind," Cal speaks up. "He was stuck in a bus."

Daryl glances at her, his eyes dark.

"He try to take Rick?"

She blinks; she knows he's observant enough to have recognized Shane and Rick's bruises for what they were. Only a blind fool wouldn't have been able to discern the truth; the scrapes, the hard words and looks. Even after they'd returned, Shane had retreated from Rick, but his eyes had held his turmoil well.

"Yeah," Cal nods. "He did."

Daryl's lips are tight as he looks away. "Shoulda left him behind."

She hesitates, and then bites at her lip."We all make mistakes," she murmurs quietly.

He glances at her, unsure if her admission encompasses only Shane, but he finds her frozen, looking out across the vast field of darkness before them.

"Cal?" He asks, but her gaze is unwavering. He follows her eyes, his own cresting the dark silhouettes of the treeline. Despite the moon spilling her light across the horizon, even he can't deny the telltale flash of headlights up on the next farm over. He stills, fingers coiling around his crossbow.

"We need to get Rick," Cal whispers and then disappears, melting into the dark.

Daryl blinks, squinting. The farm was far enough away through both the trees and hills that they had never had cause for concern, but in the dark the bright light travelled far. From where they sat atop the RV, he could hardly make out the bright flare of their headlights flickering between trees. Only a wisp of light would spear through – a blinding glimpse accentuated by the dark surrounding them.

But it was enough.

* * *

The sound of a frog croaking into the paleness of predawn light is enough to shatter glass.

Rick looks out across the field from the front seat of the RV, brow drawn and jaw tight. The dark shadows around his eyes tell of his sleepless night.

"Are they even still there?" T-Dog asks. "How we know they ain't gone yet?"

"We don't," Daryl grouses. "We saw 'em – that's enough."

Rick runs a hand across his jaw.

"They might have moved on," Glenn suggests from somewhere in the belly of the RV. "Right?"

"We can't expect them to have," Dale says from the passenger seat.

"What if they're Randall's people?" "T-Dog asks.

"We'll deal with it," Daryl meets his gaze evenly. "Just like before."

"Yeah, _deal with it,_" Glenn groans.

They go quiet as they look out across the field, unable to see the farm next to them, but knowing that only hours before there had been other people there.

Cal, leaning back into the couch, watches them. They've changed – each and every one of them so different from even a week before. There is a hardness to their eyes, a stiffness as they look out across the field.

"We'll move into the house for a few days," Rick suddenly says. "Station a few extra people on watch."

"Should we send a scout-?"

"You volunteering?" T-Dog cuts Glenn off, causing the younger man to blush.

"No," Rick shakes his head. "If they're still there, we'll know soon enough."

"And if they are?"

Everyone freezes and looks at Shane leaning against a counter, cleaning his nails with the tip of his knife. His expression is expectant – almost condescending in its ease.

"And if they are?" He repeats, meeting Rick's eye so evenly that the RV sparks with a sudden electricity.

"We'll deal with it," Rick's jaw works. He meets and holds Shane's gaze.

Neither looks away.

* * *

The sun hardly breaches the horizon by the time they are finished, by the time the camp is collapsed and packed away once more into the belly of the RV. They move into the house, pushing themselves into rooms with their few belongings.

Hershel accepts them readily, his eyes drifting forlornly to the farm neighbouring his own property.

"It'll be better this way," he says. "Especially with winter fast approaching."

The group divides, slinking to rooms or curling up on the floor. Cal finds herself depositing her bag in a room with Carol and Andrea, and then retreating back to the living room.

Rick greets her with a grimace.

"You should get some sleep," he tells her, eyeing the hard lines under her eyes. She hadn't slept all night, that much was obvious.

"I need to do something," Cal tells him quietly. "Anything."

Rick hesitates – and then nods.

"They need help with breakfast."

"Traditional gender roles, huh?" Andrea murmurs as she passes by from their room – her voice is filled with frustration.

Rick rubs at the bridge of his nose.

"Don't worry, Rick," Cal pats him on the shoulder as she passes by.

Despite the amount of people in the house, the seriousness of their current predicament sees them silent. The morning is spent in hushed stillness, watching and waiting.

Daryl, Rick and Dale are the first on watch; laying themselves down upon the roof of the RV, or the new watch tower, or even in the loft of the barn. From the house they can hardly see them where they lay for hours on end, hardly breathing they are so still.

It is just after lunch when Shane, T-Dog and Glenn move out to relieve the others.

"Tell me if you see anything," Rick stresses as he hands Glenn a pair of binoculars lifted from Dale's bird watching kit. "_Anything."_

Glenn nods as he settles himself atop the RV, nodding to T-Dog at the watch tower, and Shane in the barn.

* * *

His glock is heavy – heavier than it ought to be. He doesn't understand it.

Maybe it's guilt, he thinks. Maybe it's the fact he keeps seeing flashes of things that could be, should be, and would never be. He keeps seeing himself – happy and laughing, but it isn't real. It isn't real because there is blood on his hands – but not red blood, he notices, but brown, dried and crusted.

It flakes away into a storm.

A storm building inside and around him.

Sometimes he remembers a flash of a life before, when his jealousy was something subtle and born of wanting. He had been found wanting – always. The only thing he excelled in was being hard and cold and mean.

The only thing he had excelled in then was the only thing keeping him alive now.

And it wasn't enough.

It _still _wasn't enough.

Shane had wanted to be a hero. Growing up, that was all anyone really wanted to be. And for a while he had been a hero. He'd saved cats from trees, and occasionally helped a little old woman across a road. Hell, he'd even been in a shootout or two – including the one that had led to Rick's hospitalization.

But then the new world hit and he realized that he just wasn't cut out to be a hero. Hell, sometimes he felt like he wasn't even cut out to be a cop.

He would never be good enough, he would never be _right. _Not while Rick was still there – not while Rick was still holding on to what he believed in. Rick had excelled at a lot of things – and it wasn't always being a husband or father -, but it was in being a good man.

Rick was a good man.

Rick was a better man than him.

He blinks, his hand coming up again and again to hit against his forehead.

Again and again and again.

He takes a breath.

It would have been easy to leave him behind, but Rick hadn't done that.

He would have – he would have left Rick behind if his butt had hit leather first. But Rick had come back for him. He had come back despite everything. Shane blinks, remembering a time when he could rely on Rick for anything – and Rick had relied on him too. It's a bittersweet thought, one that grounds him.

One that makes him realize just how fucking heavy the gun really is.

He doesn't understand why the gun is heavy. It's heavy enough that he strains into the afternoon heat, sweating under its weight. He cradles it until he can't, and then a resolve sets in.

And then he unloads the magazine, letting the cartridges rain across the floor.

The gun returns to his hand – light. Lighter than before all this; lighter than before _everything. _It feels right, like it should have always been empty.

He stands and leaves the barn, leaving the scattered ammunition behind.

_And maybe that was what finally made Shane a hero._

* * *

"They're there. I saw 'em. They're right fucking there, Rick."

Everyone around the living room starts, eyes wide as Shane bursts in with Glenn on his heels.

Rick stands up, hand falling to his hip as he takes in Shane's stormy expression and Glenn's wild eyes. "Did you see anything?" He asks the younger man.

"No," Glenn chirps, holding up his hands.

Rick looks to Shane, "you sure?"

Shane holds his gaze before he nods.

"How many?"

"A couple."

The room goes quiet.

Patricia and Beth – only having just found her legs – murmur quietly in their discontent. Andrea hardens. Carol looks away sharply. Lori clutches at Carl.

The rest stand in silence, waiting.

Rick rubs at his eyes.

"They might be with Randall," Cal says, her words eliciting a ripple of disquiet. "We need to know if we have to do something."

Rick looks at the group, their fearful faces as they clutch at one another. "I won't ask anyone to do this."

"I'll go," Cal says. "I saw a few of their faces. I can help you."

Rick nods.

"Me too," Daryl offers, the brief glance he gives Cal enough of a reason for Rick to nod his head in acceptance.

"Thank you-"

"I'm coming," Shane suddenly cuts Rick off.

A long moment passes. Everyone holds their breath.

"Okay," Rick says. "Okay."

* * *

They move out shortly thereafter, the gold light of the young evening falling around them. They head through the trees, around behind the barn. Daryl, having known the farmhouse in his search for Sophia, leads them through the wood. It isn't long until they come to the creek the property backs onto, and Shane murmurs quietly of their need to split up.

"I saw them moving up this treeline," Shane supplies, motioning ahead.

Daryl nods.

"You two go up that way. We'll aim for the house," Rick says.

Cal blinks in surprise, and when she looks at Rick it's to find his expression serious and imploring. She hesitates and glances at Shane.

"It'll be okay," Rick nods.

"Okay," she turns, briefly glancing again at Shane. The tension of the man has melted away, his shoulders loose as he stares long at Rick.

They don't wait to watch Rick and Shane bleed away into the wood, but turn and move along the fence line bordering Hershel's property. Daryl moves quickly, his eyes trained to the ground searching for any hint of the trail.

Cal follows behind him, her eyes wide as she clutches at her knife.

For a long while neither say a word. The only sound between them is the soft step of Daryl's feet over the dried grasses and fallen leaves – behind him, Cal is a ghost. He glances back several times to ensure she's there, to make sure she hasn't floated away into the slowly darkening wood.

"There ain't nothing here," Daryl rasps, slinging his crossbow over his shoulder as he rights himself. They'd been out long enough that the light was failing, casting an array of shadows in places they ought not to be.

"What do you mean?" Cal asks, her voice pinched.

"I mean, either we missed the trail, or there ain't one to begin with."

"But-"

It is then that they see the farmhouse squatting alone up a narrow and winding drive, tucked gently back in copse of trees and bushes. A car sits off to the side, door thrown open.

Daryl slinks past her, moving through the clearing with quick steps. He's beside the vehicle in moments, peering in with a frown.

"Whoever was in here left in a hurry," he says. "Left a lot of shit in here."

Cal joins him and peers in, blanching at piles of goods. The smell of fresh blood is grizzly, and Cal glances down in alarm when she notices the front seat is covered in it.

"What're you thinking?" She asks.

Daryl shrugs, moving around the car to get a better look at it. "Georgia plates."

Cal nods and leans over, turning the keys in the ignition. "Car's dead."

He nods, "probably ran into some trouble, drove out here and-"

Cal frowns at the blood on the front seat.

Their eyes move to the house standing in silence. Slowly they move to it, wincing as the steps creak underfoot and the door wheezes. For a long moment they stand in the doorway, blinking into the dark house that looms around them. Cal marvels at how her life had taken such a turn, remembering her brief adventure with Merle into Betty and Graham's home.

It doesn't take them long to find him, a fresh walker still shut away in an upstairs bedroom. He sits up from the bed he had died in, eyes pale and ravenous. Daryl puts him down, and the two shuffle closer to take a look at him.

"Something just doesn't add up," Daryl mutters, and he doesn't need to say anything for Cal to know he refers to Shane's apparent sighting. There was no one else here – the car had been too full of goods, and someone else would have surely put the walker down before moving on.

Something was happening.

Daryl digs in the man's pockets, wincing when he pulls out a crumpled photograph of the man and a pretty woman in front of a house. Daryl shoves it in Cal's hand. She pales when she catches sight of the man's grinning face, her heart squeezing painfully at the sight of him so alive and free; it juxtaposes the reality of the body in front of her.

She flips it over, wincing at the buoyant scrawl.

_Brandon and Jessica._

_Woodbury. _

"Woodbury," Cal glances up. "Isn't that on the far side of Senoia?"

"Yeah," Daryl rasps. "It is."

And then they hear a gunshot.

* * *

**This chapter is a bit disjointed, jumping from different points of view - secondary, and even tertiary characters finding a voice amidst this chaos. I hope people picked up on what exactly Shane was thinking - it makes the whole thing a bit more tragic, in my opinion. There will probably be no clarification in the next few chapters, so if you feel like you didn't quite get it, feel free to ask. **

**On to some fun stuff.**

I have never stated what Cal looks like (and I probably won't), but it'd be interesting to hear how people envision Cal - whether that be a full description, or if you have a certain actress in your mind.

**Lastly, thank you to everyone I couldn't thank personally! I appreciate your support in this adventure!**

**Please review!**


	17. Chapter 17

_A perfect halo  
__of gold hair and lightning  
__sets you off against  
__the planet's last dance_

* * *

Brandon hadn't amounted to much in life, and his death had been rather unextraordinary. He had, by some foolish draw of luck, been bitten when helping secure a rather volatile – and injured – survivor from near Senoia. It had been in the confusion of the attack that he had slipped away knowing his fate was sealed – and perhaps he had been too cowardly to end it himself.

He had fled, taking an abandoned car on the highway and driving into the night. It was then that he had stumbled on the herd, disbelieving of the vast ocean of shadows that shifted and waved before him. It was only as his headlights swam across their eyes that he had realized just what he was looking at – and he had turned to flee once more.

They had followed the flare of lights, one thought and one thought alone driving them on and on - hunger. By the time the sun had come and gone again, the herd numbered somewhere in the hundreds. Inevitably, Brandon had succumbed to his injuries, and still the herd stared ahead, unaware that they followed a man long dead.

They would have wandered still had it not been by some twist of fate that a man was killed. They would have gone on forever, had a boy not drawn and shot a pistol to protect his father.

But the sky lit up with a crack, and their eyes and mouths and minds turned with it.

* * *

The gun shot echoes like a thousand voices.

_We're right here. Come and get us. _

A deep silence follows thereafter, and neither Cal nor Daryl can find their voices or their feet. They are frozen.

Daryl's sentiment echoes in the room – something wasn't right, and it began with Shane and Rick. Cal could still remember the freshness of their bruises, the turmoil in their eyes. Their argument had taken a violent turn, but was it so deeply rooted that it would end so violently?

The lingering silence of the gunshot's shock gives her her answer.

Daryl doesn't say anything. He turns and runs, and Cal follows him closely. They weave through the house, clutching their weapons in hand. When they come to the front door Daryl comes to a grinding halt – Cal runs into his back with a soft breathe.

"Fuck," Daryl hisses, and Cal follows his gaze out the window. From the treeline there pours a wave of stumbling, ambling, groaning shadows – each and every one jerking and clicking and snapping as they drift through the dark. With surmounting horror and dread, both Cal and Daryl realize they head for the farm – towards the blazing beacon of the Greene's home.

There is no time for discussion, if they wait any longer the walkers would be upon them. "That many will tear the house apart," Cal whispers.

Cal pulls at Daryl, her insistent grip tugging him into the gut of the house, towards the kitchen. It's there that they find a back door leading off into the dark wood. For a moment they hesitate, Cal's fingers coiled about the door handle in a white-knuckled grip.

The question is evident in her eyes – a challenge.

Daryl nods, and Cal pushes the door open.

It's a short run from the house to the treeline, and they move silently across the grasses and into the underbrush. They don't look back, but slip along shadowy game trails. The moon, despite her fullness, is no ally in the wood, and it is only when Cal stumbles over a root that Daryl has the opportunity to look back.

In the field behind them is a dark and rippling wave – an ocean pouring out from the far treeline, and crashing like the growing tide against and around the farm house they had only just been in. It was unalike anything he had ever seen. The herd on the highway was nothing in comparison.

Daryl's fingers coil tightly about Cal's bicep, and he pulls her to her feet with a soft grunt. She doesn't protest; she doesn't turn and look back. They push into the trees, running as quickly as they can through the dark forest with its uneven footing. Once or twice Cal stumbles, though her lips remain firmly closed and she suffers in silence.

They leap over the fence, wincing as they burst out from the safety of the treeline to rush across the open field. Cal matches Daryl in speed, though less familiar with running over uneven footing, she lags behind after a few missteps.

Behind them they hear a crack – a loud splintering sound that forces them to keep going.

"The fence," Daryl explains, and Cal feels her blood run cold when another crack echoes into the night.

She can already imagine them spilling across the field.

"What's going on?" They hear a cry come from the house, and both of them rush until they're spilling into the light of the porch.

"What's going on?" Someone repeats.

"We heard a gunshot," Andrea says.

"Where are Rick and Shane?"

"Did you see Carl?" Lori cries.

"We have to go," Cal breathes.

"Did you see Carl?!" Lori hisses.

"We have to go!" Cal snaps, silencing the murmurs of confusion. "They're coming - walkers."

Slowly, one by one, they turn to look out across the field to the horde drifting towards them. It isn't hard to discern the shadowy mass for what it is – the rattling moans and cracked growls are enough. They spill out from the woods in every direction, moving as one endless horde towards their home.

"I haven't seen this many since Atlanta," Glenn says.

"We have to go," Cal whispers.

It is as those words leave her mouth that the barn erupts in flames, belching fire from its belly and crackling with the cries of the undead trapped within. The barn echos with the shots of a pistol – the telltale flash of gunfire drawing the group's cries of dismay. Jimmy is the first to react, spilling from the porch and rushing for the RV, screaming that someone is on top of the barn.

The distinct roar of a Magnum cracking in the night forces a cry from Lori. "Rick! Carl!"

The RV sputters as Jimmy tries to start it, the telltale crack and cough of the motor causing several earsplitting cackles to rise up from the oncoming horde. The old vehicle comes to life just in time, its headlights spilling across the snarling faces and outstretched hands of the first walkers. Even from the house, over the tumult of the herd's cries, Jimmy's yell of distress and fear ring clear.

Jimmy throws the RV into drive, running over several of the walkers with a slurping crunch.

Someone on the porch lets out a cry as several of the undead ignore the fleeing RV, their mouths clicking as they consider the people standing on the porch. Chaos erupts – people fly in every direction, rushing into the house for belongings, or towards the vehicles parked in the drive.

"Carl!" Lori shouts, her panic evident in her eyes as the barn roars in its fiery death. She watches in panic as the RV bounces across the field, lurching across the uneven terrain – whether walker or dirt - as Jimmy races for the barn and the two figures waving frantically for help.

"He'll be fine, Lori!" Cal hisses, grabbing Lori's hand and dragging her towards a truck. The other woman rips her hand from Cal's iron grip and attempts to run, but T-Dog is there curling her into his arms.

"Go!" He snaps, dragging a kicking Lori towards a truck. "I got her!"

The first crack of a shotgun makes everyone hesitate. The walkers are upon them, spilling across what had once been camp, and reaching greedily for the farmhouse. Hershel stands a few yards from the house, cracking shot after shot from his shotgun, stopping just long enough to reload.

Cries of terror alight the night. Cal ignores them, rushing from the porch – hesitating when she nearly runs into a wave of walkers coming around behind the farmhouse. Someone shrieks off to her left, and Cal turns with wide eyes to watch as Patricia, having only just stepped from the backdoor of the house, is swallowed beneath a horde of reaching hands. Beth shrieks from her side, her hand reaching out as if to save the older woman. When Patricia's grip goes limp Beth turns to flee, but a hand coils in her hair and drags her down.

Cal blinks, her mouth going dry as she watches both women disappearing under a pile of squirming bodies.

One moment they had been there – alive and breathing – and the next they had not.

"Cal!"

Something collapses on her from behind, and she pitches forward under a body. Somehow in the fall she twists, her eyes widening as a pair of teeth snap down on her arm. The layers of duct tape wrapped around her forearm stop the walker from piercing her skin, but the blinding pressure of its unrelenting jaws bearing down on her nearly makes her yell in pain. The walker's hands reach for her stomach; its jaw squeezing and ripping at her arm.

She tries to kick it. She tries to thrash and push it away. She can feel its fingers scrabbling across her torso, pulling at her shirt, trying to dig into the soft skin of her belly. She was in the city long enough to know that their teeth weren't their only weapons – she had seen what they could do in those first few days. The cold truth of her impending death rears before her, and Cal lets out a quiet snarl.

_Forget what you have to lose, and fight like hell. _

Somehow, she manages to wrestle her knife free from beneath the weight of her attacker. She stabs awkwardly at the walker's head, rage building in a soft snarl as she misses again and again. Her snarl turns to a muted yell of pain when it begins to shake its head, shaking her arm in its mouth as if to break her limb. The pain is blinding, and by some luck she manages to thrust her knife into its temple.

It slumps forward against her, mouth still pressed against her aching arm. For a long moment she lays beneath its, listening as the world dissolves into terror and hunger.

She knows she doesn't have long. She pushes the walker from her and stands, eyes wide and wild. The initial group of walkers that had spilled from behind the house are preoccupied only a few feet away, ripping and tearing into what had once been Beth and Patricia.

Cal takes a step back when a bloodied walker looks up at her, its white eyes wide in recognition. It lets out a rattling moan and stands, shaking and jerking as it steps towards her.

_Fight like hell. _

A hand grabs at her. Cal turns with her knife, a snarl on her lips.

"Fuck girl, it's me," Daryl hisses, putting an arrow into the walker shambling towards them. He grabs her by the arm and drags her after him, ignoring her hiss of pain. Cal follows, eyes wide as she takes in the field before them – shadowed black by the amount of walkers still spilling out from the woods. "Come on!" Daryl grouses.

"The others?" Cal dares to ask, quiet despite the chaos surrounding them.

"Gone or dead," Daryl rasps. "Like us if we don't get moving."

She follows at that, wincing as the sounds of terror becomes nothing more than the cracked groans and cries of the dead. The gunfire ceases, the screams of terror become nothing.

Behind them the herd surges, pulsing in every direction. A few walkers cry out and lope after the pair bee-lining for the black motorcycle parked near the road. Once Daryl has mounted the bike, Cal drapes herself behind him, her fingers coiling into the fabric at his waist. The motor roars to life and they drive, tires throwing dirt and rock into the air.

Only the wisp of a hand snatching at her back tells her of how close they had come.

* * *

They drive on to the highway, and it is there that they stop and wait. The car where they had left the message for Sophia is the only thing that makes sense to either of them. Daryl crawls atop the cab, while Cal sits on the hood. For a long while they sit there, waiting to see if anyone else made it.

If anyone else had survived.

Over and over again Cal finds herself back in the chaos, being unable to do anything and watching as Patricia and Beth succumb to the walkers. She had been close enough to do something – if only she had reached out, if only she had tried. It's a bitter feeling, one that she chides herself for, but is unable to stop. Survivor's guilt was something they all had to deal with from now on.

Eventually the ache of her arm brings her to reality, and she looks down at the duct tape that wraps around her arm. The frayed edges of the torn tape makes her blanch, and she shrugs out of her shirt to better look at the damage, praying that in the struggle she hadn't been bitten. Even a scrape of the teeth could be enough.

She hesitates, glancing up at Daryl who looks the other way. The truth of her situation is moments from her, and already she can imagine the consequences of a small slip, a small gash.

One breath. Two.

She tugs the sleeve down and grimaces. A black bruise already crawls along the entirety of her swollen forearm, the skin at the edges fading to purple and blue. She takes a deep breath and runs her hand along her skin, wincing at the sharp pain lancing up her arm. And then she freezes.

Her fingers come away wet and red.

She can feel it building, a panic so real and tenacious that she chokes. She wipes at her arm frantically, choking back the pain of her injury.

Already images of her turning and attacking the rest of the group plague her, leaping in front of her eyes like memories rather than possibilities. She can feel cold metal against her forehead, and smell the oil and grease of a gun. She can imagine what immutable hunger must be like – endless and all encompassing.

She rubs harder and harder, trying to scratch her own fouled skin away.

"Settle down."

Hands suddenly coil about her own, and she lets out a gasped snarl as she tries to pull away. The grip is unyielding, and she blinks up at Daryl leaning over her, his eyes narrowed and lips tight as if he's dealing with nothing more than a petulant child. "Damn it, settle, Cal!"

She tries to tug her hands away, but he holds firm. Instead of letting her go, he pulls her to his chest and lets her sink against him with a quiet gasp. She doesn't sob, he notices. She sits in silence against him and gasps and hiccups and breathes as if the world is ending. Even her torment is quiet.

He almost hadn't found her, she was so damn quiet.

For a long moment they stand there in the grey morning, Cal pressed against Daryl's chest and he clutching her to him. Again she tries to pull from his grip, wanting nothing more than to flee before she starts ripping into them.

She doesn't want to turn.

She doesn't want to become one of _them_.

"Settle down," Daryl murmurs again.

Eventually she calms down, breathing into his neck. She shakes, but he doesn't know why – not until he pushes her away and looks her in the eye. The guilt there is enough to make him growl, and she twists one of her arms in his hand until he looks down at it in question.

For a moment he forgets to breathe. A daunting thought lingers in his mind: maybe he hadn't found her fast enough.

Black and purple bruises are not his main concern, but rather the bright contrast of her blood. It makes his heart stop, and then his own breath comes out in a rattling gasp. He makes her sit down on the hood of the car and looks at her arm, folding it over in his hand to better look at the swollen skin.

"I don't see any bite marks," Daryl mutters after a moment, to which his own relief is met with a bitter laugh. He glances at her.

"He got me through the duct tape," Cal mutters, and Daryl looks at her discarded shirt. He lets her arm fall down and grabs the shirt, twisting the damaged arm in his hands. It doesn't take long to find the torn edges, but he lets out a breath when he realizes it isn't torn enough to have meant tooth to skin contact.

"The pressure must have rubbed you raw," Daryl says. "Ain't no way he got you with his teeth."

Cal lets out a choked sigh, "but what if-"

"No," Daryl interrupts.

Cal starts at his vehemence.

It is that moment that they hear a car approaching, and Daryl reaches over and grabs her long sleeved shirt, tugging it back over her shoulders. She watches him, how gentle he is as he helps her slide her injured arm through the sleeve.

"Daryl? Cal?" The voice belongs to Dale.

Daryl gives her a pointed look as he buttons the sleeve, effectively hiding her injury, before he turns to greet Dale with a nod.

"I thought we were the only ones," Dale gasps, sliding from the green SUV.

Carol crawls out behind him, her eyes wet, but shining at the sight of them. Cal stiffens when Carol embraces – she awkwardly pats the other woman on the back.

"Are we the only ones so far?" Dale asks, swinging his rifle over his shoulder.

Cal nods, "we've been here for a few minutes."

"Heads up," Daryl calls down from the top of the car, and they all blink towards two more cars trailing towards them.

One by one the rest of the group slinks from their vehicles, joy upon seeing the faces of friends and loved ones evident. Maggie and Glenn rush from their car, both of them lighting up upon seeing Hershel with Rick and Carl. Lori lets out a cry upon finding her family, racing past the truck she had shared with T-Dog to clutch fervently at her son and husband.

"Thought we lost you," T-Dog says, sidling up to Cal with a grin.

It is only as the group celebrates their survival do they realize the fallen. Hershel and Maggie clutch fervently at one another, their eyes scanning familiar faces in search of their own. Hershel meets Cal's eye for a moment, but its enough for him to recognize the look in her eyes – and the soft shake of her head.

The man lets out a cry of disbelief, sinking to his knees. Maggie clutches at him, her own soft sobs echoing in the morning light.

"Andrea?" Rick asks, his eyes falling to the group.

Carol shakes her head. "She... I don't know."

"Jimmy?" Maggie asks, her voice hardly a whisper from behind her tears.

Rick looks down at his feet, his expression grim. "He didn't make it."

"Shane?" Lori asks.

The group goes quiet, waiting. Daryl and Cal glance at one another, the truth of the farmhouse between them. Carl looks into his hands. Rick takes a sharp breath and then shakes his head.

"No."

One by one they sink down, resting on or against cars. The reality of their situation, of what they had just survived and of whom they'd just lost, a weight few of them are used to carrying. They mourn as well as they can in their new world, wiping at their tears and hoping their quiet sobs don't attract the dead.

"Where do we go?" Maggie asks after a while, her eyes wide as she considers her father's fallen face. "What do we do?"

"We keep moving," Rick grinds out from where he has collapsed against a truck with his son and wife under either arm. "We _have_ to keep moving."

"We need to find somewhere," Dale says, his voice bleak. "Winter isn't far away."

"I know," Rick agrees. "I know."

Afterwards, they collect what they can from the cars around them, taking whatever Cal and Daryl had not taken during their previous trip. They siphon what gas they can find, wincing at just how little the cars have. Eventually Daryl spots a walker in the distance. The group splits into their cars, Rick leading the way through the maze of the highway with his family.

Daryl looks at Cal, at her arm cradled against her chest.

"Best keep an eye on you," he says, holding out a hand.

She blinks at him, and takes it, swinging up behind him on his motorcycle.

* * *

They drive for as long as the fuel lasts, the number of cars dwindling as they sputter and fail. Eventually they're crammed together, the seats full as they pile in one by one. Only Cal and Daryl remain attached, the two of them weaving ahead of the group as scouts.

It is late in the evening by the time the last of the cars lose fuel – even Daryl's motorcycle succumbs. The group is forced to move on, walking along the highway on high alert, carrying empty gasoline tanks and praying they'll stumble across any abandoned cars.

By the time night falls, they're out in the open with no prospects. Daryl finds a small niche – the remains of an old building that offers them some semblance of shelter. Despite their protests, their complaints and fears, the group follows him and Rick into the dark. They settle themselves amongst the old stones, green from moisture. The night is chilled by the coming fall, and they huddle together for warmth and in fear.

Outside of the high walls and into the trees, Cal uses the last of the water to wipe away the blood on her arm, wincing at the clear marks where her skin had been rubbed raw. She cleans it as best she can before tugging her shirt back on, buttoning the sleeve up with a pained hiss.

"You okay?"

She starts, turning to find Daryl standing behind her, crossbow in hand. His eyes are soft as he scans her face, looking for any sign of her discomfort – or any signs of the change, she thinks.

"Besides nearly losing my arm," she shrugs. "I'm fine."

Daryl moves up beside her, reaching out with gentle fingers to pinch at the duct tape that had protected her arm. He rolls it between his fingers – she watches with wide eyes and held breath.

"Smart," he says.

"Not smart enough," she mutters.

"You're here, ain't ya?"

Cal shrugs, "it felt pretty close back there."

They go quiet at that, both of them lost to their own nightmares. Cal remembers that hands scrabbling at her belly, and the walker shaking its head like a mad dog. It had been a surreal moment, one where she had felt nothing but anger.

_Do not go gentle into that good night._

_Rage, rage against the dying of the light._

Together they walk back to their makeshift camp. Cal retreats to a corner and settles down. T-Dog looks like he wants to approach her, but she shuts her eyes to feign sleep.

Daryl settles nearby, watching Cal out of the corner of his eye.

For a long while no one speaks, until soft wispy clouds of breath float before their eyes.

"I'm cold," Carl says, cuddling close to his mother with wide eyes.

Rick reaches out and touches his son's head.

"Rick," Lori murmurs, her eyes imploring. "A fire?"

Rick's jaw sets, and he glances at Cal tucked away in a corner – distanced from the group. At Lori's question, Cal's eyebrows noticeably raise in disbelief. Her eyes are still shut, but her dismay is evident. If they were going to survive these next days, they were going to need her.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Rick mutters back.

Lori glowers at him.

Carol sits forward, lips drawn tight. "A small fire isn't going to hurt-"

"You ever hear about light discipline?" Cal says, eyes still shut.

Carol slinks back, her eyes lowered.

"There will be no fire," Rick clarifies.

Lori stares at them both, her brow furrowed. "Rick-"

A sound in the dark of the forest causes everyone to pause. Carl whimpers against his mother's shoulder, fingers clutching at her jacket. Carol whimpers, T-Dog stills. Cal opens one eye and looks out of the shadowed archway of what had once been a door. Daryl stands against the wall, crossbow held at the ready.

"What was that?"

One by one they succumb to panic as they remember the night before, the treachery of a single gunshot calling down upon them the legions of hell. Without vehicles, what hope did they have? Without fuel, food or water, what could they hope for?

"I'm leaving," Maggie announces, standing up. She clutches a gun to her chest – one of the few they have left.

"You ain't going anywhere," Rick says, standing up.

"Then do something," Carol hisses.

Rick's jaw sets, his temper flaring at her accusatory tone. "I am – I'm keeping this group together," he seethes, eyes wild and dark. "I – Shane..."

Cal and Daryl exchange a glance.

"I killed my best friend," Rick breathes. Carl begins to cry into his mother's collar. "He gave me no choice. He drew on me, and-"

Rick hesitates. He wipes his hand across his brow and pinches the bridge of his nose. "I killed my best friend," he repeats. "He drew on me. He drew on me."

Silence is all encompassing. They sit in the dark and they exchange pensive glances. Daryl looks away, jaw tight. Cal shuts her eyes and sits in her own darkness.

"I _am_ doing something, but if you think you can do better, then go ahead." Rick steps aside, motioning to the entrance behind him. "See how long you last. My hands are clean – everything I've done, I've done for _this group._"

Carol is looking away, eyes to the ground. Maggie digs her palms into her eyes, sniffling as she listens to the quiet words of a man bearing the weight of the world.

"So go. Go if you want, but let's get one thing straight," Rick breathes. "If you're staying, this isn't a democracy anymore."

* * *

**A quick update, but one that has a reason. ****Unfortunately, this will be one of the last chapters until September. Due to a recent natural disaster in my province, my job is going to be a lot more difficult and a lot more remote. I will have no power, let alone internet access or even cell reception, for the better part of the next two months while I continue to work the program I work, while dealing with the damage of a flood. I apologize profusely, but these are circumstances that no one could have really foreseen.**

**Nonetheless, I appreciate your continued feedback and support even while away. Reviews are greatly appreciated, and I often find myself looking back on them when I am in need of encouragement. **

**I hope to hear from everyone, and I can't wait to get back to writing this story when I return.  
Much love!**

* * *

_**The Lightning Strikes - Snow Patrol  
****Do not go gentle into that good night - Dylan Thomas**_**  
**


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